Horatius Bonar on Romans 7 

What in the world? Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry.

What is going on?

Where's the music that we need? Where's my sound engineer? Oh, we're winding our way up. Duplex Gratia Radio has a new theme song. Hi, my name is Mike Evendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. I just thought I'd throw something in there to make you wonder what in the world was going.

On.

You can write me, Mike, at nocompromiseradio .com. And you can get on Amazon, or Cancer Is Not Your Shepherd, or Sexual Fidelity, or Gospel Assurance, or what else is on there, Romans, Colossians, et cetera.

Horatius Bonar and the Reading of Romans 7

Today on No Compromise Radio, I want to read a little tract by Horatius Bonar, 1808 -1889. I had fun doing it last time with J .C. Ryle, and then we went into the Sam Baugh article on Hebrews 12. I thought I'd do the same thing today because, as my daughter would say when she was little, the topic and the subject is picey.

It's real picey. I don't think I like that song as much. Maybe this one I like better.

See?

It's theological. I made a mistake.

I didn't mean to sin. The Saint and the Seventh Chapter of Romans. Now I have your attention. Different views on Romans 7, probably, I don't know, five that I could think of off the top of my head. I could not explain all five, but I know there's lots of them.

I know which one I've taught. I know which ones I've taught against. Let's listen to Horatius. I mean, that's kind of a good name for a kid, don't you think? Horatius? That would be exactly what we want.

Horatius?

Okay, I'll stop.

I do not see how anyone with the right insight in the apostle's argument, without a theory to prop up, or with any personal consciousness of spiritual conflict, could have thought of referring this chapter to a believer's unregenerate condition or to his transition state while groping his way to rest.

Well, that's the first sentence. I guess we know where he stands. I guess I keep reading. It furnishes a key to an experience which would otherwise have seemed inexplicable, the solution of perplexities which, without it, would have been a stumbling block and a mystery.

It is God's recognition of the saint's inner conflict as an indispensable process of discipline, as a development of the contrast between light and darkness, as an exhibition of the way in which God is glorified in the infirmities of his saints and in their contests with the powers of evil.

Strike out that chapter, Romans 7, and the existence of sin in a soul after conversion is unexplained. It accounts for the inner warfare of the forgiven man and gives the apostle's experience as a specimen of the conflict.

And today we're looking at Romans chapter 7 with Horatius Bonar. As you know, the book of Romans is summarized with one word or can be summarized with one word and that one word is what? Very good class, righteousness.

And in a wonderful logical sequence, he lays out what the Heidelberg would pick up as guilt, grace, and gratitude. Or we could use the word righteousness and say we have no righteousness, whether that is in chapter 1 fleshed out as unrighteousness, chapters 2 and part of chapter 3 as self-righteousness.

Chapter 3b, 4 and 5 talk about how righteousness is credited or imputed or reckoned to our.

Account.

Chapters 8, chapter 8 talks about the opposite of righteousness credited, and that is, that would be condemnation and how that's not applicable to a believer. There's no condemnation for those in Christ.

Chapters 9, 10 would talk about sovereignty, chapter 11 as well, how righteousness is made manifest in the lives of Christians in terms of sanctifying and God's sanctifying work in chapters 12 and following.

But we have chapter 6 and 7, which help us understand what's going on when it comes to the Christian life. Union with Christ in chapter 6, so what about chapter 7? Horatius Bonar goes on, the previous chapters show that the man forgiven justified dead and risen with Christ.

Is not sin extirpated then? The seventh chapter answers, no, it no longer reigns, but it fights. It does not indeed bring back condemnation or bondage or doubt, but it stirs up strife, strife which the completeness of the justification does not hinder and which the saints progress and holiness does not arrest, but rather aggravates so that at times there seems to be retrogression, not advancement in the spiritual life.

Okay, good points from Horatius. By the way, many times you'll hear the Christian life is not sinless, but you just sin less and less. And I think there's truth to that statement because there's maturation, there's growth, there's advancement, but it's not always up, up and away, to use the phrase of the song.

There's valleys, there's peaks, there's probably overall, kind of like real estate market, there's dips and peaks and just overall there's a trajectory, but not always, especially from the perspective of the person, right?

You may look at it in terms of, oh, we see the growth of the saint because of the spirit of God dwelling in that saint and we see from the point of justification to glorification.

Growth.

Okay, obviously I believe in growth, but while you're living your life, sometimes you're thinking you sin more than you have ever sinned. And maybe sometimes you are. Christians still sin and Jesus died for the sins of Christians as well.

I think partly this is explained by the fact that you might not be sinning as much as you did as an unbeliever, but you're recognizing your sin now because of your regenerate nature and the illumination of the spirit of God.

And therefore you think you're sinning more, even though you may be sinning less. Of course, there are times that you're sinning a lot and Christians sin. But I think overall, I would say it's most likely your sensitivity to sin, which is actually a good sign.

So even if you're sinning, dear Christian, and I hope you repent and you don't sin, but the reality is you sin, so do I. And when you feel convicted and you say to yourself, I think I probably sinned less as an unbeliever, I'm saying it's a good thing.

Not to sin, that's not a good thing, but to think through your sin is a good thing. To think biblically about your sin is a good thing. To think about how heinous your sin is against God is a good thing.

And then to think, you know what? It seemed like I'm sinning more now. That's good to process. Again, it's not good to sin more now, but it's good to process that fact that you're sinning more now, at least seemingly.

Does that make sense?

I think it does.

Okay, that could be better background music right there. You say, Mike, you're spoiling Romans 7 with Brian Eno and David Byrne. Okay, that could be true. I delight in the law of God after the inner man are the words not of an inquirer or doubter or semi-regenerate man, but of one who had learned to say with the saints of other days, oh, how I love thy law.

Psalm 119. Nay, with the Messiah himself, I delight to do thy will, oh my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. Psalm 40. With the mind, I myself serve the law of God is the language of the one to whom obedience had become blessedness and who is not only looking into the perfect law of liberty, but continuing therein.

James chapter 1, in whose estimation serving righteousness, Romans 6, serving God, Romans 6, serving the Lord and serving the law of God were equivalents. But then he who thus speaks, this very Paul, who had died and risen with Christ, who had been in the third heaven, adds, I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.

Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. This is not the language of an unregenerate or half-regenerate man.

When, however, he adds, I'm carnal, sold under sin. Is it really Paul, the new creature in Christ that he is describing? It is. And they who think it is impossible for a saint to speak thus must know little of sin and less of themselves.

He's kind of like a no-compromise guy, old school, no-go. A right apprehension of sin, of one sin or fragment of a sin, if such a thing there be, would produce the obsessive, excuse me, oppressive sensation here described by the Apostle, a sensation which 20 or 30 years progress would rather intensify than weaken.

They are far mistaken in their estimate of evil, who think that it is the multitude of sins that gives rise to the bitter outcry, I'm carnal. One sin left behind would produce the feeling here expressed.

But where is the saint whose sins are reduced to one? Who can say, I need the blood less and the spirit less than I did 20 years ago? Horatius Bonar goes on,. It is to be feared that some are carrying out their idea of no condemnation, of resurrection with Christ, and of the perfection of the new man, to such an extreme as to leave no room for conflict after conversion.

They do not see that while conversion calms one kind of storm, it raises another, which is to be lifelong. That's not only good writing, but good theology. To such persons, the seventh chapter of Romans is as great a vexation as is the ninth chapter to the deniers of divine sovereignty.

Both are conscious that their theology would be more manageable without the explanations and modifications which these chapters force upon them. They seem to teach that the regenerate man is made up of two persons, two individuals, the old man and the new man, constituting two separate and independent beings, an angel and a devil linked together, the old man unchangeably evil, the new perfect and impeccable.

In this case, one is disposed to ask, number one, who is responsible for sin committed? Not the new man, for he's perfect. Unless he either sins himself or helps the old man to sin, he cannot be accountable for the evil done.

A good man and a bad one shut up in one prison would not agree. But the former, however uncomfortable, would not feel responsible for the sins of the latter. Like David, he might mourn that he dwelt in Meshesh, or like Lot, he might vex his righteous soul with deeds done around him, but he would not take guilt to himself because of his neighbor's misdeeds.

It is the old man alone, then, that is the sinner. Two, who gets the pardon? Is it the old man or the new? Not the new, for he's perfect. It will hardly be affirmed that it is he who gets pardoned for the sins of the old man.

It must be the old man that confesses the sin and gets the forgiveness and is washed in the blood. Or is there no pardon needed or none possible? Is such a case? Are the sins of the old man unpardonable?

If not unpardonable, why is he said to be hopelessly bad? Three, what becomes of the old man at death? Is he cast into hell? Or if not, what becomes of him? Is he annihilated? If he be the sinner and if he sins, his sins are not pardoned.

What is to be done with him and with his sins? And he goes on with three or four other things when it comes to this old man, new man. I'm going to skip that a little bit because I want to get to this other stuff.

These questions thus asked and answered lead us to the simple conclusion that the language of the apostle is figurative. Not figurative at all, said a friend to us. There's no figure in the matter. Only a rationalist would say so.

Bible words are all real and literal. Real, I grant, not always literal. There are figures in scripture. When the Lord said, beware the leaven of the Pharisees, he used a figure and his disciples were wrong in accepting his words literally.

They were the rationalists. When he said he must be born again, he used a figure and Nicodemus was mistaken in construing his language literally. He was a rationalist. The disciples and Nicodemus by their literalities, literalities, like literal, turned our Lord's words into foolishness.

So do some among us by their teaching as to the old and new man. If there be no figure, then there must be two bodies, two souls, two spirits, those of the old and of the new. For a man is made up of body, soul, and spirit.

If there be no figure here, there will be no figure in Ezekiel 36. And it must be maintained that God literally takes out one heart and puts in another, takes out a stone and inserts flesh, in which case the old nature disappears entirely in the new reigns alone.

We know that there's conflict in the soul, but this is not between two persons or personalities or separate individuals, but between two parts of one person.

Emphasis.

In the case before us, the one person is Paul, once Saul, now Paul. He feels himself responsible for the sins of the old man. He gets the pardon for the old man's sins, for the old man is but another name for a part of his very own soul.

It was Paul who was born again, who died and rose with Christ. He was begotten again, not by the insertion of a foreign substance called the new creature into him, but by his becoming a new creature. The whole man is converted, puts on Christ, is washed in his blood, and clothed with his righteousness, soul, spirit, conscious, intellect, and will.

These are not perfected at once, but the transformation begins at regeneration. And though there are two conflicting elements, there's one responsible self, our person. Mike Amendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry, Horatius Bonar, talking about Romans chapter 7.

This mysticism as to the old and new man proceeds on a confusion similar to that which mixes up justification and sanctification. The old man in the apostle's figure evidently means sometimes our formal legal condition and other times our former moral state.

In the first sense, the old man is crucified, put off once for all and believing when we have ceased to have confidence in the flesh, Philippians 3. Thus far, it is true that it is not amended, but set aside entirely.

In the second sense, there is the daily putting off what is old and putting on what is new. It is like our putting on Christ, which is done once for all at justification, but also gradually in the process of renewing.

So that in one place we read, ye have put on Christ, Galatians 3, and another put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 13. The mixture of these two things is the chief source of errors we have been exposing.

By the way, there are all kinds of errors that pop out when you conflate justification and sanctification, somehow blend them together or forever keep them unrelated. This is mysticism or confusion, Bonar says, and it's a serious thing.

It has sometimes been taught in such a way as to lead men to believe that their peace rested on perfection or impeccability of the new man. They were taught that the new man could not sin, that all sin came from the old man, whom they put off, and that therefore they did not need to trouble themselves about sin.

No doubt the consciences of some of these misled individuals shrunk from the full application of this antinomianism, but others went on in sin, not so much because grace abounded as because they were not responsible for the sins indulged in.

The new man in them did not commit the sins, it was the old man that did it all, and what could be better expected of one who was totally incorrigible? Thus the foundations were destroyed. The ground of reconciliation was not the blood of the sin bearer, but the new man.

The foundation of peace was perfect self and not a perfect Christ. Very fascinating how he understands when you start looking to yourself all the time there are going to be bad things, like not looking to Christ.

Nay, Christ was made the minister of sin and all manner of evil was justified on the plea that the new man could not sin. This doctrine, as sometimes stated, reads not amiss. It looks plausible as professing to rest on the very words of scripture, but it only needs a slight analysis, a little taking to pieces, to show that, in effect, if carried out, would destroy the feeling of responsibility, to weaken the sense of sin, to blunt the edge of conscience, to shift the foundation of the sinner's peace from Christ to self, to render the blood of sprinkling unnecessary, to hinder the personal holiness, and to supersede the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul.

For as to this last, if the doctrine be true, there is no room for the operation of the Holy Spirit any more than the blood, as he cannot work in the old man and does not need to work in the new. That the Christian is not responsible for sin committed against his better will, nay, than the sin Christian is not sin at all, has been maintained from Romans 7.

It is no more I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth in me. In this, however, the apostle is not shaking off responsibility from himself, but explaining a fact. Okay, did you get that? Let me repeat that.

He is not shaking off responsibility, but explaining a fact, giving a solution of difficulty. The verse contains one of the most peculiar oriental negatives, which the imperfection of human speech renders necessary in order to bring out the whole of a great but complex truth, which in less particular language could not be perfectly enunciated.

The passage is only one out of several exhibiting the same apparently contradictory form of assertion. The others are as follows. I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Lives in me, Galatians 2. Unto the Mary I command, yet not I, but the Lord, 1 Corinthians 7.

I labored, yet not I, but the grace of God, which was in me, 1 Corinthians 15. From these examples, it is plain the apostle in Romans 7 did not intend to disavow either personal personality or responsibility or free agency, but simply to affirm the existence in himself of an overmastering element of the power of evil, the consciousness of which led to the statement, I am carnal, sold under sin, and to the exclamation, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?

The dislike which some have to consider this chapter as expository of a saint's daily conflict is by no means a safe sign of their religion or their theology. That peace with God through the blood of Christ should be the beginning of warfare seems to us one of the most inevitable conclusions from the gospel, whether of Christ or of Paul.

Indeed, it goes farther back than this to the first promise regarding the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And this warfare, internal no less than external, has filled up the life of every saint from the beginning.

Apostolic conflict is but a reproduction of patriarchal. Abel and Stephen, Noah and Peter, Abraham and Paul move over the same battlefield, for the church is one, her covenant one, her warfare one, her victory and glory one.

Each saint has groaned being burdened. The groan has deepened as light increased, and the New Testament fullness of liberty, instead of diminishing, has intensified the conflict. One can imagine David or Elijah perplexed about the unending war, how thankful they would have been for the seventh chapter of Romans.

All right, that's kind of a good thought to think about as we take a little break from reading this pietan publications from New Ipswich, New Hampshire. I think this is also carried by chapel library.

What if David or Elijah had Romans seven? How thankful they would have been for the seventh chapter of Romans as the clearing up of the mystery. Yet they fought on as men fight in the twilight or the midst.

They finished their course and won their crown. And shall we in these last days fling away the key to the mystery which the apostle, excuse me, which the Holy Spirit has given us by the apostle Paul? Or shall we quit of the mystery by denying the existence of the conflict?

Shall we stifle conscience by calling that no sin which is sin? Shall we extenuate trespass because found in a saint? Shall we sit easy under evil because done by the old man, not the new, but by the flesh, not the spirit?

Shall we nurse our spiritual pride by calling internal conflict an abnormal and unnecessary phase of Christian life, ascribing it to imperfect teaching or meager faith or to the retention of beggarly elements of Jewish bondage?

We may notice here in 1 John 3, 9, whoever is born of God does not commit sin. This cannot mean that no man once born again ever commits sin. In that case, there's no Christian upon earth. The apostle in chapter one, verses seven and eight takes for granted that Christians commit sin.

Nay, he dare not say he has no sin without making God a liar and showing that the truth is not in him. He means to affirm that being born of God is the only way of deliverance from sin and that holiness is the true and natural result of being born of God.

Gracious Bonar ends with the final paragraph. This kind of affirmation is common. None of us live to himself and no man dieth to himself, Romans 14. That is, such is the life which might be expected from us.

He is the minister of God to thee for good, Romans 13. That is, he would be if he fulfilled his office. It is added he cannot sin because he is born of God. That is, it is totally contrary to his nature to sin.

See also the following passage, a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, Matthew 7. That is, it is contrary to its nature to do so, though it sometimes does. As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast, Mark 2.

That is, it would be incongruous and unnatural. These passages, Luke 11, Luke 14, John 7, John 8, John 9, show cannot often means, not that the thing does not or might not occur, but that its occurrence is wholly against the nature of things.

Whoso abideth in him sinneth not, 1 John 3 .6. That is, this is the true and only preservation from sin. God's seed remaineth in us. We are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God.

Thus ends the reading for the day. Well, I have a dilemma, and the dilemma is, do I post this show or not? I'm not disagreeing with Horatius Bonar, but there was only about five nuggets in there that were really gold, and the rest I just was reading.

Oh, there's the music that I'm used to. Well, I'm going to just play this show anyway, because you get what you pay for here at No Compromise Radio Ministry. Why not? Maybe it'll make you want to study Romans 7 to figure it out.

That's my goal today, understanding Romans 7. That should be your quest.