Studying His Word and His Works

Listen to the study here: Romans 7:15-25

Read here: Romans 7

Review

• Calvin on the theme of Romans: “Man’s only righteousness is the mercy of God in Christ, when it is offered by the Gospel and received by faith.” Romans 1:17 and elsewhere.
• IMPORTANT: Paul wrote the letter to the saints (1:7), and the letter is about the gospel, which is a reminder we need to preach the gospel to ourselves daily. 
• Luther: Simul iustus et peccator = At the same time, righteous and a sinner! Romans 3:23-25
• In Ch. 1-3 Paul shows us our unrighteousness, and God’s wrath against that, and the switches to Christ’s righteousness as our covering, the propitiation of our sins (Romans 3:25) as the final sacrifice for sin, fulfilling the promise to Abraham, who had faith before any works
• Faith being “counted” or “credited to our account” as righteousness is mentioned 11 times in Chapter 4! If “none are righteous” as Paul wrote in Romans 3:10, then this saving faith must be a gift from God.
• Ch. 5, We now have peace with God, access to God, and hope, because of what Christ did for us while we were weak(v. 6), sinners (v. 8), and enemies (v. 10). Christ did this “at the right time,” (v. 6), connecting Christ’s work on the cross and God’s plan of redemption to real history (not just a myth or legend).
  • Atonement(5:6-11): Jesus satisfying God’s wrath for us through His sacrificial death on the cross.
• Ch. 5 and 6 describe federalism, this idea of one man making a difference, for righteousness (Jesus) or wickedness (Adam). 
• Ch 6 ended with lots of words pointing to the new road we are now on with Christ, the sanctification road.
  • Service is the key word, “slaves” used 8 times
  • “Present yourselves”(5), “Leads to”(5)
• Sproul: “our regeneration, our rebirth was the work of one Person, God. It was not a joint venture; but from the moment we take our first breath of regenerated spiritual life, it  becomes a joint effort.” the work of one Person is what salvation is about. The joint venture is what sanctification is about. Ch.6 ends and we continue into Ch.7 describing what this “sanctification road” looks like to walk down. We were on the sin road that leads to death, but once we are born again, now we are on the grace road that leads to eternal life.
• The middle of Ch. 7 shows us the importance of including the law in any gospel presentation. We don’t take sin seriously enough unless we take some time to think about the law, with Paul specifically referring to the 10 commandments here (coveting). Knowing the law is not supposed to bring us slavery, but freedom. It’s not about what we can’t do, but what we can do. Like, if once we know what F=ma is, we don’t focus on what we can’t do, but what we can do, like build a lighter jet engine with more thrust, which increases acceleration. Likewise, instead of coveting, we can share. Instead of murder, we can forgive. Instead of adultery, we can work towards loving one spouse well and having kids that we train up in the way they should go, followed by grandkids, etc. 

Intro

• Read verses 15-25, but we will focus mainly on 15-21.
• Key words: do/doing (10), do not (6)
• In the previous study on v. 7-14, we finished with this: Christ dealt a death blow to our sin nature, and if we show any kind of remorse, guilt, shame, a “want to” to not be that way again, we need to trust that is Holy Spirit driven. That is from Christ in us, setting us free from the bonds of sin, sanctifying us. When we violate God’s law, there should be some guilt and shame in that (Romans 6:21), but even more there should be repentance and trust and a desire to follow Him. Not self-pity but self-denial. A Matthew 16:24 taking up of our cross and following Him. Following Jesus and walking the sanctification road well requires focusing less on self and more on Him.
• The Perfectionist view
  • We discussed this error briefly in the previous study, but Sproul says there have been several movements through church history that claim after the first work of grace of being born again, a second work of grace occurs, resulting in 100% sanctification. Instead of the “consider yourselves,” “present yourselves,” and “leads to” of Ch. 6, some claim believers ARE these things. That we have hit the end of the sanctification road while alive, and so there’s nothing left to repent of. But, when we connect Ch. 6 with what we read today, there is really no other conclusion except that Paul is talking about his present condition, not some former state.
  • One reason this is important to discuss is because there have been people in the past that love the Lord, that studied his word way harder than any of us ever will, memorizing Greek and the Hebrew, and THEY came up with this backwards interpretation! This is important to discuss as a reminder that “the experts” don’t always have the right answers. Watch the news, they are always going to this or that “expert,” someone considered an authority figure on a subject, to show us how to think about something. “The experts” lost a lot of credibility during the Covid pandemic. It was a wake up call that God gave us brains and we need to listen to experts, but not to everything they say every time. Like when former President Biden said the unvaccinated would experience a “severe winter of illness and death,” and other ridiculous statements.
• Sproul writes that there has been a transition from a sinless perfection idea started by John Wesley, where “holiness churches” were started, which led to Pentecostalism, with speaking in tongues used as evidence of this so-called second work of grace. Later, this morphed into neo-pentecostalism and a “baptism of the Holy Spirit” that supposedly equips Christians for ministry but does not necessarily make them sinless.
  • But, when you think about it, if you have to have this second work of grace, what are you until then, a second class citizen in the kingdom? How can Paul simply address his letters “to the saints,” if some aren’t? No, it’s the Holy Spirit that does a work from the get-go. I Cor 12:13 mentions “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” What IS real is that we can be on different places on the sanctification road, different levels of Christian maturity. That’s what not just Romans, but the whole Bible teaches. Remember Romans 4 and Paul’s story about Abraham? He “grew strong in faith”(4:20). In other words, he wasn’t equally faithful the whole time, there was room for growth, and he took advantage of it.
  • If anything, Romans 7:15-25 should hammer that truth home to us. Being born again means spiritually, there is room to grow from a baby to an adult. Paul struggled with sin, too, which doesn’t give us an excuse, but comfort in knowing this reality is normal for Christians. If there is no struggle, then we aren’t really born again.
• In his commentary, Sproul spends an entire chapter on this sinless perfectionism idea. It was important to him because he was influenced greatly as a young Christian by “holiness people”. Sproul struggled to give up smoking cigarettes, which in itself isn’t bad, unless it’s an addiction, and an addiction is an idol, and the second commandment is “no idols”. Sproul says it took 25 years from the day he became a Christian until he went 24 hours without smoking, 10 more years until he went a month, and 10 more years to get rid of it altogether. He did all kinds of stuff, having “holiness people” lay hands on him, putting pictures of Jesus on the cigarette box, letting Satan deceive him into thinking he wasn’t “saved enough,” etc. But, sooner or later, Sproul said, we have to hear the words “My grace is sufficient for you,” I Corinthians 12:9. So, all that to say, Sproul says he can feel the anguish of Paul in these verses because of his own experience. And If we consider it, we all have something similar, a recurring sin or something newer, that we can “feel the anguish,” too. Why God allows this, we don’t know (we will get into this in later chapters though), but maybe some of it is to remind us it is His righteousness that saved us, and it is His grace that is sufficient. The fact that we want to fight (and we should want to fight) is because we are Christians, not in spite of it.
• One other thing Sproul mentions is that, fundamentally, humans have a dual nature, soul and body, physical and nonphysical. The Bible does discuss mind, body, soul, spirit, will, and other divisions, but fundamentally, we are soul and body. Sproul says “Only the Holy Spirit can distinguish between these.” 

• Verse 15
  • For I do not understand my own actions. We HAVE TO be okay with not understanding everything! We have to be okay with mystery, with the unknown. Otherwise, we think we know everything and pride gets in the way. The Bible doesn’t say “repent and all things will be made known to you.” It says “repent and believe”(Mark 1:15). It does say that things will make more sense, that His word is foolishness to the unbeliever(I Cor 1:18). So, as believers on this side of Heaven, we can see better, but it’s still pretty blurry compared to what’s coming, at least that’s what I Corinthians 13:12 says. Believers are fully known by God, we just don’t “know fully” yet.
    • Regarding knowing stuff, did you know most of the major science and math discoveries that run the world today were discovered by Christians? It does make sense that if His spirit is now in you, and you are in His word and in prayer daily, you are going to understand the Creator of the universe better, he is going to reveal things to you that others don’t know, give you a “sixth sense” about things. This should not be a surprise to anyone.
  • Anyways, what Paul is discussing here is basically “UGH! Why do I keep on sinning!?!?
    • And this is not some deep mystery here. Unless you are a total narcissist, you know exactly what he’s talking about. We don’t want to covet, but we do it anyways. We don’t want to commit adultery in any form, but we do it anyways (Matt. 5:27-30). 
    • Sproul describes that when we are born again, this battle starts. Yes we have the peace/access/hope now, and we have that in overwhelming abundance, but life is not as simple now, so we shouldn’t expect it to be. Satan is always there, driving us to reductionism that we have discussed before, that desire to just have one thing going on, one explanation, not two. Before we were born again, we were “sin only, no guilt, no shame, no repentance”. After we are born again, we have sin + guilt+ shame + repentance.” But, remember believer, we have upgraded software that can handle the new complexity.
      • It’s like when you put a wimpy SD card into your camera and it takes grainy video because it can’t process the input fast enough. But then you put in a better SD card and it makes your videos more clear because it can process more. That’s a silly example, but it does apply!
    • As Christians, life is more complex, but we have the Holy Spirit of a living God inside us now. We can handle more complexity! Part of sanctification is about awakening to this fact, and building a relationship with Christ over our lifetime, handling more and more, sinning less and less. 
    • But, we have to realize there is a battle, otherwise we can get tripped up. That’s why it is so important to stay in the Word, to pray, to fellowship, to serve. Think about Ephesians 6:10-20, Paul spends a lot of time here reminding us of the real spiritual battle we are confronted with daily, showing us how to stay battle-ready.
  • To describe our own actions as believers, Sproul wrote about a description from Augustine of believers as the horse and Jesus now has the reins, with Satan trying to take back the reins. We used a similar description back in Romans 6:4-11 with the “Jesus Take the Wheel” song. I also think of the movie Ford vs. Ferrari and the scene where Ken Miles describes doing the perfect lap to his son. Just once.
    • God designed us to strive for excellence and perfection. If we can strive for that in the physical world of work and races, we can strive for that even moreso in other realms, like in our mental and spiritual battles.
  • Sproul: “We are to be diligent in every way to feed the new man and kill the old man.” Maybe one word can sum up this whole passage. Fight. You may have more to fight than the next guy, and so progress in sanctification seems slower, but that doesn’t really matter, the goal isn’t to win a sanctification race against your friend, the goal is your sanctification (I Thess. 4:3) and building your relationship with Jesus, giving God the glory and serving others along the way.
  • Still discussing v. 15, this verse also makes us consider our will. There is a lot of debate in Christian circles about free will, our ability to make choices. Sproul describes what the great American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, wrote about free will.
    • Secular view: the will is indifferent, it can make a good or bad choice freely.
    • Biblical view: the will is biased towards evil. That is how we are born. I don’t think we have to go on a deep dive about this, it’s what Paul has been trying to show us this whole time, that none are righteous (Romans 3:10). Again, what Paul is saying in Romans is, without Christ, our will is biased towards evil. It is not “free” in other words. The unbeliever’s will is only free to make choices that ultimately send them to Hell.
    • Edwards: The will is simply the mind choosing.
      • We always choose, in fact we must choose according to the strongest desire at the moment of choice.
    • Sproul: Never in our lives have we chosen to do something that we did not want to do. That is the ugly power of sin. We choose to sin in any particular situation because we want to. The Devil does not make us do it; we cannot make that plea on judgment day. Every sin we commit proceeds from our internal desire.  
• Verses 16-24
  • Paul describes his own struggle, something that all Christians should experience, because it is a result of Christ in us. We are on the sanctification road now, the newness of life road, through Christ we have the verse 21 “want to” to do right, and the “want to” to avoid evil. We have those moments where we want to do good, we want to avoid evil, but then we do evil anyways. Ugh! 
    • Remember what we are called to, to be disciples. That word means “people of discipline.” Self-disciplined, which comes through living out real battles and gaining experience.
      • Sproul says self-discipline grows through three main ways, prayer, Scripture, both reading it and memorizing it, and going to church. Developing those habits. Do you think you will have more or less of the chaos of verse 19 if you do these things and make them habits?
    • Sproul writes, “If we know how much God hates our sin, and if we have affection for Him, we will not want to displease Him by sinning.” 
    • Edwards said we have the natural ability to please God but not the moral ability. In other words, God gave us the equipment we need, the mind and the will, to obey him. However, we can’t, unless the Holy Spirit does a work in us first. The act of repenting, a requirement for being born again, is impossible without the Holy Spirit first doing a work in us.
      • There is another idea about this, sometimes called the Arminian idea. It says fallen humanity has the ability to choose Christ. It’s easy to see, I know I have thought this way too, that grace is a gift, and our only “work” is to reach out and receive that gift. But no, I believe the Bible, and Romans especially, says we can only receive grace because Christ has first done a work in us. He has already invaded our souls. This matches with John 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” “Team Trinity” was at work first. Believer, you didn’t come to Jesus because of your righteousness, because you are a master of good decision-making. No, it’s all God’s doing. All glory to Him.
      • I think this is SO important, especially when we sin and we doubt. If WE chose God, then we put all this pressure and stress on ourselves when we sin and we start to doubt, thinking “am I really saved?” I think this is why a lot of people seem to feel the need for getting baptized more than once, that “I didn’t really understand the first time,” thing, as if it was up to them. That now, they know what salvation means more than they did before, so now they are “really saved.” That could be true, but what’s even more true is Jesus saves. It’s not up to us!
      • Remember, Paul said while we were weak, Christ died for us (Romans 5:6). Not while we were strong and solid in our understanding, but while we were weak. While we were enemies (Romans 5:10). While we were sinners (Romans 5:8). Why do you think Paul addresses all his letters “to the saints,” to believers in other words, and then goes on to preach the gospel? It’s because our salvation had nothing to do with us! We don’t have to understand it all first because Christ’s work is first. We don’t have to be perfectly sinless, we just have to have that “want to” and that is all we need to know to trust that Christ is in us.
      • For real believers, all these things in Romans 7 that Paul is talking about, none of that would be happening to you unless the Holy Spirit was in you. You wouldn’t be wrestling with sin. You wouldn’t have this verse 21 want to to do right, and also notice evil exists, grabbing at the wheel. You wouldn’t feel sometimes like you have this verse 24 body of death hanging around, stinking and rotting. You wouldn’t be repentant. You would want to “do better,” not because your mom was upset with your behavior, or your friends, or your siblings, but because you know your behavior displeased God. 
    • In the next study we will dive deeper into these verses and start Ch. 8. As in other places, Paul exposes our sin, but then exposes the “much more” of God’s grace, so don’t dwell on your sin, repent of it and revel in God’s grace! Paul dwells on his own sin here, but read through v. 25 (and into Ch. 8). He doesn’t stay there.
    • Let’s conclude by thinking about what I’m calling “Paul’s Law,” v. 21, that when we want to do right, evil lies close at hand. Pride is probably a big part of that evil that lies closest at hand, something C.S. Lewis describes quite well in both Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity. Keep “Paul’s Law” in mind to help you remember the real battle we are in and that we need to fight.
• Up next: Romans 7:19-8:2