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Are we ready? Lee, would you open us up with a word of prayer?
Sure. Our kind and gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day that you have made. We thank you for all the blessings that you give us each and every day of our lives, for your kind providence down through the years that you've taken care of us.
Thank you especially for preserving your word, and we pray that you'll give us ears to hear it, eyes to see it, and not only to learn it, but to do it. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. Well, you have me today. I got a call this morning early, 6 .03 or something like that, and Andy was not feeling well. And yesterday he wasn't feeling well towards the end of the conference, so he asked me to fill in.
So I'm not going to be in just because I don't know where he was at, but we are going to be in Romans 7. And what we're going to do is do a theological interpretive study on Romans 7, and I'm going to read verses 7 through 25, and then we'll walk through it and make some observations and draw to some conclusions.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, You shall not covet.
But sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.
And this commandment, which was to result in my life, proved to result in death for me. For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it, it killed me. So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and righteous and good.
Therefore, did that which was good become a cause of death for me? May it never be. Rather, it was sin in order that it may be shown to be that sin affecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment, sin would become utterly sinful.
Well, we know the law is spiritual, and I am of the flesh, sold into the bondage of sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do. But I am doing the very thing I hate.
But if you do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.
For the willing is present in me, but the doing, the good, is not. For the good that I want to do, I do not do. But I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing that I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it's the sin which dwells within me.
I find this law, or some translations say principle, that is evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur that the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members.
Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, on the other hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other hand, my flesh the law of sin.
I would say probably most of us from verses 14 through 25 would say that's our experience in life, and that is how often we do come to the conclusion of this text. But I would like to look at it in light of chapter 6, 7, and 8.
6, 7, and 8 are a unit, and we should never extrapolate a certain part of a text and interpret it in light of our experience. So I'm just going to be off the onset. I hold the position that this is Paul looking retrospectively at his life as an unconverted person, not as Paul as a converted person struggling to be holy, okay?
And I'm going to tell you how I'll come to that conclusion, and if you disagree with me, that's fine, okay? If y 'all come to the conclusion that, hey, I disagree with your interpretive conclusion, that's fine.
There's godly men that hold on both sides. Tom Schreiner holds a position that I hold. Bruce Ware, I don't know if y 'all know who those men are, but John MacArthur, R .C. Sproul, and some of these others hold that this is Paul speaking of his life trying to be holy.
So there is a merit on both sides. First of all, we need to understand that when he says at the beginning where we start, he says, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? Well, is the law sin? Is the law of God sin?
No. What does it do? It reveals sin. It shows us what is right and wrong, and Paul goes on to say that, and he actually uses something that is not external. He used something that was internal, and we know that Paul most likely used something that was internal because Paul had already, under his pharisaical life, and he gives his pedigree, what was it?
He says, there was none better than me and all of the tribe of Benjamin. Of the law, I was the best. I kept it all, but he says this, but when the law told me not to covet, he understood then that he was coveting, and the very thing that Paul said, man, I thought that I was alive, that I was living, showed him that he was dead because of the sin.
Then he goes on to say that the sin had taken opportunity. Verse 11, that sin took opportunity through the commandment, and it deceived him. Can anybody understand how was Paul deceived through the commandment?
Paul was deceived through the commandment thinking that he had the ability to keep it. Paul thought, hey, I can love the Lord God with all my heart, all my soul, my strength, love my neighbors, myself.
I cannot commit adultery, not murder, not steal, and had Paul done all those things? Well, in his mind, he had, but as soon as coveting came, he realized, oh wow, I've been deceived, that I am now actually been killed by the law.
Did the law ever have the ability to make anyone righteous? No, it didn't. It only had the, did it ever have the ability to give life? No. Paul says it only had the ability to give death. Why? Because it says that when the law comes, it shows you that you're dead in your trespasses and sins.
So now that we've laid that groundwork in 7 through 11, you get to verse 13, and it says, therefore, did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be. Rather, it was sin in order to be shown that sin by affecting my death through that which is good, meaning that the law being good affected each one he was dead so that through the commandment, sin would become utterly sinful.
You need me to go get you some water? You sure? Okay. Okay. So here it is. The commandment is to do one thing, to show that sin is utterly sinful and to make it show us, and even Paul, that it is exceedingly sinful.
Now, here's where we get to who's the wretched man. You get to verse 14, and I would, how many, is it whose headings say the conflict of two natures or the civil war or how many people say, what do they say?
What does yours say? Okay. Anybody say the civil war within? Anybody have a heading there? 14 through, well, yours might be, they may have broke yours down from 13. I don't know. Okay. Anybody else have something other where it talks about the two natures as a heading?
No. Most study Bibles make the distinction either between the nature, the conflict of two natures, which will show that we don't have two natures. We have one as a believer. Yeah, but what's, is there a heading above verse 14?
No. And if your Bible's done in paragraphs, they usually put a heading there. It says for, we know that the law is spiritual and I am of the flesh. Well, the law is spiritual because of what reason? It points to the inner person to show that, hey, all these external things can be correct, but God, the law was always to point to something internal.
He says, but I am of the flesh sold into the bondage of sin. It is this passage right here that I would say is the stamp that Paul is speaking of his unconverted state. And this is the reason why. If you back up into verse, chapter six, it says for, we just started in 19.
I'm speaking to you in human terms. This is chapter six, verse 19. I'm speaking to you in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness resulting in a further lawlessness.
So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, which would result in your sanctification. For when you were slaves to sin, you were free in regard to doing what was right. That's not what Paul's, Paul's not saying here that he's free from sin.
What is he saying? Saying he's in bondage to sin. And if you follow the train of what Paul, his train of thought from chapter six, which is eight units, six, seven, and eight, he's saying, look, if you were freed from the bondage of sin, you would be converted.
Paul's looking back at his unconverted state saying, look, I was sold to understand, sold under sin. And verse 15 says, for what I am doing, I don't understand. Now the Jewish people, did they delight in the law of God?
Yeah. Did they find comfort in the law of God? They sure did. If you even back up to Paul's argument in chapter two, he's speaking to the Jewish men and he says, Hey, you delight in the law of the Lord.
You find comfort in the law of the Lord, but you can't even keep it. So what he's saying is, yeah. Was there a desire in the, in the Jewish person to keep the law of God? Sure. But they thought they saw it to be as nothing but external.
And Paul saying, it's not, it was an into the, it was an internal thing where the, the law was to produce internal change, but it could not, it was to then show you that there is an internal deficiency, which would be our heart.
He says for, I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I'm doing the very things that I hate. We would even say this in the writings of Paul and even in the, the apostle John, he who practices lawlessness is what?
Of the devil. What does he say here? I am practicing the very things I do not like. Paul's saying, look, the very things that I'm practicing are sinful. He says, but I am doing the very things that I hate.
Did Paul hate sin? Yes. Because the law as a Jewish person, he's going, these are detestable to God. He says, but I do the very things that I do not want to do. And I agree with the law confessing that the law is good.
He would say, okay, the things that I'm doing are wrong. The things I'm doing are detestable to God. The law has done what it's supposed to do, and it's to produce and show the things that are unholy.
So now no longer am I the one doing it, but the sin which dwells within me, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is my flesh. Now we know there's nothing that dwells good in anyone apart from the spirit of Christ.
He's saying here, Paul is not making a distinction that his flesh is bad and he is not. You can't make that distinction between an unconverted person. The flesh is bad. The heart's bad. Everything that we do comes out of the heart.
He already says that in Romans 6. He says, your hands are your very instruments and your feet are the very instruments of unrighteousness. Where does the unrighteousness come from? It comes from the heart.
He says, for the willing is present in me. This is in verse 18. For I know that nothing good dwells in my flesh. For the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. He's saying, look, I want to do that which is right and holy in God's eyes, but I can't do it.
Does a believer have the ability to say no to sin? Does a converted person have the ability to say no to sin? That's not what Paul's saying here. He's saying, look, I couldn't even do that. So he can't, on my perspective, can't be speaking of his converted state.
Paul has the ability, if he was converted, to say no to sin. That is the best thing about coming to faith in Christ is before we were saved, we could not say no to sin. Now, and I think we spoke about this yesterday just a little bit, that as a believer being sanctified, now we can say no to sin.
Why? Well, he has already said it in chapter 6 because we've been freed from the bondage of sin. We are no longer slaves to sin. What are we a slave to if we're in Christ? Slave to righteousness. He says in verse 20, but I'm doing the very things that I do not want to do, and I am no longer the one doing it, but the sin which dwells within me.
Paul's saying, look, what I'm doing is because of what's in me, sin. And in verse 21, he says, I find then the principle that evil is present with me and the one who wants to do good. Now, so some translations say, and I find then the law that evil is present within me or the law of sin is present within me.
And that's true. And what is the law of sin? The law of sin is death. That's what it produces. And the one who wants to do good. Paul wanted to do what was right in the eyes of God based under the Mosaic legislation, but Paul had not the ability because it was never the ability of the law to give life.
He said, so in verse 22, I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law and the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind, making me a prisoner of the law of sin, which is in my members.
If you follow Paul's train of thought from so far from 14 to 23, does that not sound like a defeated man?
It sounds to me like what we do. That's fine. Um, because the flesh, you know, but we, but we have Christ and our things, you know, why didn't I listen to what God did? It's not that we don't know him.
Okay, good. Mike, you threw your hand up. A lost person has no future. All of us have sinned according to 1 John. We all sin and we all have sinned, but we're free from the bondage of it. We're not free from the doing of it, so we're not free from the desire of it, which comes through our flesh, so we are free from it in the fact that we have sinned.
So we do have the ability to say no. We do, but we don't always do it. Correct. We don't always say no because they're fighting against the spirits.
Sure, we're not, we're not saying that the flesh is not weak, but is Paul saying he has the ability to say no when he doesn't? Paul's saying he doesn't have the ability. Paul's speaking of inability. Okay.
But I think he's saying that he does what he doesn't want to do, and I do that a lot sometimes myself. You know, why did I do that? I know it was wrong. Yeah, I had the ability to say no,.
But sometimes the temptation's enough. Good. Do you think an unconverted person worries about displeasing God? I think under the most... They know there's a God, but they suppress that, so can't they just sin and not really worry about it?
Do you believe.
That a person, if he commits adultery on his wife, that he as an unconverted person doesn't think that's wrong? Okay, he does think it's wrong. Correct. Morally. Correct. Do you think.
That it's possible? I'm sorry? I don't agree with that at all. Sure. That's what I was leading to, so go ahead. Go ahead. Okay, some people have a... And I think that's a good... What you just said.
Is a very good point. We have a moral compass within us to tell us what's right and wrong. Can a person do something? Can a man commit adultery on his wife, violate the marriage covenant, be unconverted, and be guilty and feel bad at what he did to his wife?
He can. He sure can. Hang on. He sure can, but does that mean that's the conviction of the Holy Spirit in his life? No. No. It's the moral compass that God wrote on the heart of all men to know between.
Right and wrong. That's why someone who commits a crime or a murder, they run. Well, yeah,.
They're fleeing guilt. Correct. They're fleeing guilt. We understand we're talking about the Mosaic legislation here. He is saying he was brought up under the Pharisaical way of thinking that he could keep the law.
Go read through all the Gospels. Did the Pharisees think they could keep the law? Sure. And what did Jesus have to constantly say? Oh, you've heard it said, do not commit adultery, but I'm telling you, if you've ever looked at one of them with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery already.
Oh, you've heard it said, don't commit murder. He said, hold on a second. If you've been angry in your heart towards another person, you've committed murder. So even Jesus himself was saying, hey, you thought you kept the law.
And in your mind, same thing Paul said, you've deceived yourself. And Jesus says, no, no, no. It's more about a.
Heart condition more than an external. They thought they could justify themselves.
Sure. Sure they did. And you don't think Paul was justifying himself as an unconverted person? Did he justify the murder and the enslavement of Christians? Go read Acts, what is it, seven, eight, where he was doing that very thing.
Now you think when he was doing that, he thought he was wrong? No, I think what he did. No, he thought it was right. He even says that. Yeah. He's right. He, he, in his mind, he thought what he was doing was right.
He was doing what he said. I'm doing it out of zeal for the truth. Well, his truth was skewed because what his truth was before was before Christ came, the truth was anything that opposed the temple, opposed God's law, meaning the mosaic legislation was an offense against God.
Well, once Christ came, he fulfilled all of that. Well, if you push Christ out of the picture, what are you going to do? You're going to follow rules and regulations that were in the mosaic legislation.
Understand? You.
Look like you're not. I understand what you're saying. Okay. Well, we can disagree. You'd have.
To prove to me how he's sold under sin, but be a believer. Yeah, that'd be tough. Yep. Yes, ma 'am. And that's where, and being so correct. That's how, that's how I'll come to that conclusion. Hey, if, if anybody disagrees with me, that's fine.
You want to arm wrestle about it. I'm fine with it. Hey, understand there are godly men that are split right down the middle, but do we interpret this passage in light of our experience, or do we interpret this passage in light of what, of what Paul has already said in six, seven, and eight.
Do we now, am I standing here today to tell him you that, Hey, the things that I struggle with things I want to do, I don't always do. Well, I would be a liar. Okay. But is that what this passage is saying?
I believe no. Is that what I think Paul's saying in Galatians five, we have sins that war against the soul. Yes, I do. I don't believe that Roman seven and Galatians five are speaking of the same thing.
I believe Paul's speaking here in his unconverted state, but he's looking back from his converted state. Let's take every person in this room. If you were to look back now and look at your life and explain your life as an unconverted person, would it be vastly different if you were explaining your life from an unconverted perspective as an unconverted person?
It would be much different because now you're looking at it with your eyes open. What's Paul saying, man, he gets to this and he just makes a, an outburst of theological Tourette's in 25 and says, uh, I mean, in 24 wretched man, I am a, who's going to save me from this body of sin.
And what does he do? He blurts something out. Thanks be to God through Lord Jesus Christ. He just blurted it out. Well, he's, he's saying, look, I'm from an unconverted state. It was, I had no way to be delivered, but now that Christ has come, that for my delivery has come from.
And then he goes on to say, he continues on his train of thought and 23 and 24. He says, so then on one hand, I served the law of God in my mind. He was still saying he could do it, but the law of sin and death was in his flesh.
Can't make that distinction between an unconverted person. An unconverted person does what he does because of what in his heart, he is a slave to sin. There is no doubt as a person that comes to faith in Christ, is he any longer a slave to sin?
Can we, do we agree? Agree or disagree? Agree. He is a slave no longer to sin. He has the ability to say no. Paul is saying in this passage here, he does not have the ability to say no. The things he wanted to do, he could not do.
Now, so if you disagree.
With me, that's fine. Adam had the ability and he lost it and everyone else lost it. I'm sorry? Adam had the ability, but he lost that ability. Sure. He was in a position where he could sin.
Or not sin. Yeah. So yeah, Paul, I mean, Adam had the ability to sin or not sin. And what did he choose to do? Sin. Willfully. Yeah. Willfully. He was not deceived like Eve. He said, I'll do it. Yes, he did.
And he owns hers too, but not protecting her. Yes, sir. Now, when you get on into chapter eight, then you go on to where he says, hey, you, you no longer, let's just take what he says in verse 15. He says, you've no longer received the spirit of slavery.
Look, so what is he saying? We're free. A person that can not, it's a double negative. That cannot not sin. A person that cannot not sin, all right, is unconverted. A person sins because he's a sinner.
He does not have the ability, all right, can we curtail some things in our life and not sin? Yes, we can white knuckle and say, I'm just not going to do those.
Things, but we don't have the ability to be perfect. We don't. Okay. Good. Okay. You're.
Coveting. That's right. Yes, ma 'am. But it's internal. And I would say this. Yeah. Everybody that's in this room that's converted would say your life after your conversion, your sins become more internal than external.
Yeah. I mean, sure. But the sins that you struggle with now, I'm not saying you don't, you don't commit unrighteousness with our hands and our feet, but more of it is with the eye, with the heart. Because one, we go, all right, when I do that, if I, we'll just take for instance, steal something.
If I steal that, take something that doesn't belong to me, man, what are they going to think about me? But as you just said, boy, I can sure covet that. Nobody will ever know. I believe you're very correct.
Yeah. I mean, and some of those sins we would say are respectable sins, self-righteousness, greed, pride. And that's what Paul was saying here. Yeah. That's what Paul was saying. Hey man, I did all that.
And you just go read Paul's pedigree. He said I was the best of the best. So if Paul's saying he was the best of the best under his perspective, was he a good Jew? He said he was. Doesn't he follow along in the Bible and say that he's the chief of all sinners?
He sure does. Because the closer he got to Christ, just like you and me, we realized I ain't as good as I thought I am. Hey, I can tell you this. And if anybody in this room feels differently, when you first got saved, man, you were on that honeymoon, wasn't you?
He's like, man, this is great. I remember telling my wife, they said I was in for the fight of my life. And this ain't that hard after all. Pride comes before a fall. Pride before a fall. And it was difficult.
But because Christ had changed me, he had freed me and my perspective of who I was was no longer the same. I was happy. I was happy in Christ. I was filled with joy. And there was immediate transformation to the things that I used to do, I didn't do anymore.
But then I go, oh, wow, man, I don't do that anymore. I'm really not, I'm not bad anymore. But then I started looking at my own heart. I started going, wow, man, the more I read my Bible, and the closer I tried to get to the Lord, the more sinful I was like, man, I'm really not that good after all.
I'm just as dirtbag as I was before. It's just not as external.
When you get a hold of what holiness is from reading the Bible, then you realize how unholy.
We still are. What were you saying, Mike? That's the ability. Hey, and if we can even,.
Let's just even go on to chapter eight. And you look down to, for the mind that set on the flesh this is 8 .6. The mind that set on the flesh is death. But the mind that set on the spirit is life and peace because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God.
Here you go. For it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. Yeah, because what did he want to do? He wanted to please God through the law. And if you are looking at what Paul has already said about himself, he said, oh, I can do it.
Yes, ma 'am. Yes, ma 'am. Well, nobody's disagreeing with that. So did Paul think that he was pleasing God by doing what he was doing?
I don't know.
Well, he says he did. He said he deceived himself. I mean, you look back up.
You know, we all deceive ourselves in that way.
But Paul specifically dealing with the law of God here, he says, for sin taking opportunity to me, the commandment came, deceived me and killed me. Why did it deceive him? Because he thought he could obey God through the law.
He thought he could. And the externals, just like us, how many of us think that we do good when we don't commit an external sin? Hey, I'll even say how many of us think, you know what, man, I did good today.
I shared a gospel with that person. God. Yeah. And that's prideful. God loves you in Christ, loves you no more than he loves his son now than the day you were converted. He is no more when I say happy your position in Christ.
You're in no more right standing with God when you're sharing the gospel than when you're not or when you're reading your Bible, confessing, repenting and putting to death the deeds of the flesh by the spirit than when you're not now.
You need to make sure that your lifestyle is not going the direction of of of living, quote, under grace and no longer not under law. Understand what he's saying there is you're no longer under the condemnation of the.
Law. You're under grace. No. Yeah, it's good. It needs something to nourish it. Yeah.
Yeah, we got we won as a new believer. You need someone to help you feed yourself. Any person thinks they can feed themselves. Now you can read your own Bible. There are some things you need help with.
We all still not even mature believers, those that have been in the faith 50, 60 years, if any, they'll tell you they ain't arrived. Yeah, to to spurn one another to good works, to be equipped. We've never arrived.
We arrive when we close our eyes and we wake up in glory. That's when we have arrived. And a good bit then will things that we thought we knew then.
Will certainly be made right then. Yes, ma 'am. Wait. OK, when we think about the self-righteousness or, you know, aggregate aggrandizing, but situation that's right there and he'll allow something to happen that will just put me back down to size and remind me that it's him and that I'm like you say, I'm not a spiritual giant or anything like that.
And and I thank him for that, too, because it's, you know, our desire, we've got our desire to keep his commandments for where I'm going to serve and I'm going to serve it. But we still have that desire to fight.
The good fight. But in your in your case, you were what's the motivating factor? Is the motivating factor to be an obedient servant, to be found worthy on that day? OK, is that the desire and to do it out of love or the desire to be to keep in a right standing with God?
There's a big difference. Do we do what we do because we love God or do we do it because we want to be in right standing with God? If you're doing it because you're trying to be in right standing with God, then you're trying to add to your justification.
That's exactly what it is. Yeah, ain't kind of. Yeah. And they were doing what they were doing because, hey, God's looking. I mean, look, what did they even say? He says, you take and tithe your mint and dill.
You know, those are some of the smallest little seeds. And he says, you forget the weightier matters of justice and righteousness. And mercy. So if we're if we're doing what we're doing to to be made right with God and in Paul's case, he's saying, hey, I was trying to keep the law to be right with God.
Look, you can't. That's what he thought. He was God's man. God was happy to have Paul and his unconverted state on his team. That's how Paul would have seen it, because what he was would hauling people off into slavery and, you know, taking men and mothers from their children and even said it, taking them away out of their home.
He was a terrorist. He was said he would say he was doing he was striking terror into them. And what he did, he thought he was doing was right. He thought what he was doing was right and it was wrong, but it didn't take until God revealed that to him that he realized that everything he.
He was doing was wrong. I think, you know, I story, you know, I mean, we've tried so hard trying to please God and all, but we're getting there. And I was teaching a class, an English class, and I was telling the kids just a little, a little anecdote.
I don't know. And it was, I mean, I was proud of when something started nagging at me, you know, am I going too far with this? Am I saying, you know, and when I got home that day for the very first time ever, you know, and it was like, you know, I see when my heart crossed over and I was, I wasn't pleasing God with this whole thing.
The lesson started out good that I was trying to keep too far in the pride comes before fall. I said this is, you know, and I'm really faithful and things like that, you know, not all anything like that, but just shows his love for me.
He'll always say,.
You know, on his timeframe and do what he asked us to do. We need to close. So take away from today, this don't read the Bible in light of your experience. Don't read it in light of the context in which the paragraph is written in the context in which the book was written in and the context in which the covenant by which it was written in three best rules of interpretation, context, context, context.
You'll never go wrong. If not, you begin to contextual contextualize the Bible in light of your experience and you can make it say whatever you want or do the things that we struggle with today going to be sometimes the things that we don't want to do.
Yep. Just remember every sin that we commit, we commit because we want to do it now. We do everything we want to do. We do. And it's pleasing. The Lord sometimes is not as important as pleasing the sinful condition or the sinful desires of our own heart.
Should we feel guilty of that? You better. Anytime you feel guilty, you better ask, am I? Because most likely you are repent of those things. You close us in prayer.
Dear Father, we just thank you for this word of fire to our lives. Lord God, we pray you this day and as we go forward, rejoice with you, rejoice in you, Lord God, through the singing of the.
Singing of the praises of the saints. Amen. Randy said y 'all would be back in judges next week.