Is Paul talking about before or after his conversion?

Romans 7 and the Question of Conversion

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist, my name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. What do you do when you come to a passage that has been disputed for a long time and there doesn't seem to be any unanimity of agreement on what it means?

Well that's what we've come to today in our study of the book of Romans. We have come to Romans chapter 7, and Romans chapter 7 for many comes with a large question mark because the Apostle Paul says some things that are really kind of difficult to understand and the big question is, is Paul talking about himself before he was a Christian?

Or is Paul talking about himself as a believer in Christ? Let's look at the text and we'll see what we're talking about. We're going to open up the Bible and we're going to look here at the chapter. It's not a long chapter, it's only 25 verses long, but the part that's really specifically difficult begins around verse 7.

He says, what shall we say? That the law is sin by no means, yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin, for I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet.

But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me, for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh sold under sin, for I do not understand my own actions, for I do not know what I want, or excuse me, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law, waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. So the question again, what is Paul talking about here? Is he talking about before his conversion, or is he talking about after he became a Christian?

And there are really two sides, and what I want to share with you today is not necessarily the answer, but I want to share with you why someone might take either side, then you can have an educated opportunity to make your own decision.

Paul Before Conversion and the Law’s Condemnation

Those who would say Paul is talking about himself prior to conversion would cite the fact that Paul was a Pharisee prior to his conversion. And as a Pharisee, he did want to keep the law. That was the goal of the Pharisees.

They wanted to be law keepers. And Paul would be stressing here that he wanted to keep the law, but because of his flesh he was unable to do so. And so he was just lamenting the fact that when all you have is the law, then you don't have any way to overcome sin, because all the law does is condemn.

It doesn't give the power to overcome sin. And so what do you need to overcome the sin in your life? You need the power of the Holy Spirit of God. And so if this is Paul talking about himself prior to conversion, then that would be basically the interpretation.

Paul is speaking in sort of a past tense, even though this is present tense, he's speaking of himself as he was at one time. He was a person who was unable to overcome his desire for the law because of his...

He was unable to overcome sin, even though he had a desire for the law because he was in the flesh. And thus he says at the end, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so those who would take this as Paul prior to conversion would see it as that. And then you have the other side. The other side would say, no, this is Paul speaking about the difficulty of living the Christian life and still living in the body of flesh.

Paul as a Believer Battling the Flesh

And one of the things that they would argue is that Paul here speaks of the duality of his own nature, of him having a spirit that desires, a heart that desires to do good, and a flesh that desires to do bad.

And he would say that as... And someone would say, well, as believers, we've experienced that. We have experienced the reality that if we are Christians, there are times when we truly do struggle with the flesh.

And so those who believe that this is Paul talking about the life of a Christian would say this is Paul saying, yes, we do struggle with the flesh and this is what it looks like. And here's one of the issues though.

And by the way, that's the position that Dr. MacArthur takes. For those of you who like to read Dr. MacArthur, maybe some of you have his study Bible. Dr. MacArthur takes this as this is the Christian dealing with the battle with the flesh.

And he points out the fact, I believe in his notes, that he refers to himself in the present tense. Therefore, it's focusing on the here and the now. But here's... And one of the other arguments he makes is that unbelievers don't want to do the law.

Unbelievers don't want to keep the law. Unbelievers don't have that desire. But as I said earlier, the ones who would take the other position would say, no, Pharisees did want to keep the law. They may have had a prideful reason for doing so, and certainly they did.

But they did have a desire to keep the law. They were very specifically strict about trying to keep the law. And so again, which side? And again, Dr. MacArthur, of course, is a great theologian, and so if you were to take his position, that would be wonderful.

But I could name many others who would take the other side. And so this is not just an easy or cut and dry answer. So I want to come at it like this. I want to ask the question, is it true that there is something different prior to conversion and after conversion that the believer experiences in regard to sin?

The Believer’s Battle with Sin and the Hope of Victory

And I think the answer has to be yes. The answer must be that when we become believers, something changes. And so if we take this passage to be saying that as believers, we have no ability to fight sin, we have no ability to overcome the sins in our lives, I think that would be wrong.

I think that would be, if we take this as Paul saying, this is the here and the now, this is a believer, and we take that to mean that believers should live a defeated life when it comes to the subject of sin, I think we would be misreading this text.

And so again, wherever you land on this, if this causes you to believe that you have no ability to overcome sin, that you have no ability to fight the battle of sin in your life, I would say to you that you have misunderstood this text.

Because when we get to chapter 8, as we're going to see tomorrow, chapter 8 tells us that because we have the spirit of Christ within us, we do have the ability to have victory. Now, will we always have victory?

No, we're going to fail and there are going to be times where we have great failures. And so if you go back to the passage today in Romans 7, and you say, well, this is saying there's going to be times of failure.

Well, I wouldn't disagree with that. In fact, if you go to Galatians chapter 5, and in fact, I would encourage you to do that. Go to Galatians chapter 5 just for a comparative passage. In Galatians 5 verse 16, Paul says this, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Now that sounds very similar to Romans 7.

And so, especially the part where he says to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. So that's, that's an important parallel passage because they are very similar. And it's very clear that in Romans or excuse me, in Galatians 5 that the apostle Paul is talking about the believer because he's talking about walking in the spirit and the unbeliever cannot walk in the spirit because the unbeliever is dead spiritually.

So in Galatians 5, he's clearly talking about a believer and he says that there is a battle, but, but in Galatians 5, there is in a sense in which the battle is one that is hopeless. In Galatians 5, he talks about victory.

He talks about being led by the spirit and, and, and, and that the works of the spirit are, are the fruit of the spirit or love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

And those are the things that we're called to. So if someone says, well, because I still live in the flesh, I have no ability to love and to have joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness. I would say, no, those are the very fruits of the spirit who lives within you.

And so the reality is this, however you interpret Romans chapter 7, where you say, whether you say that's Paul talking about his life prior to Christ, or you say that that's his life As a Christian, if you are interpreting it to say that as a Christian, that you have no hope of victory over sin in your life, then I think that's a wrong understanding.

We do have the hope of victory. We have the Holy Spirit living within us and we are called to take up the armor of God in the battle against sin in our lives. And so my encouragement to you today is however you understand Romans 7, don't let it be an understanding that would lead you to some kind of understanding that you cannot have victory over sin.

You can't, not complete victory, not total victory. You'll never be sinless on this side of eternity. But if you're battling and struggling with a sin, please don't use Romans 7 as an excuse, but rather remember this, walk by the spirit and not in the flesh.

As Paul says in Galatians 5 again, he says, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. I hope this has been an encouragement to you today. I hope these daily Bible studies continue to be an encouragement to you.

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May God bless you. My name is Keith and I've been your Calvinist.