We come into the New Testament and find that things aren’t any better. Not only do the religious leaders of Israel represent the coldest forms of legalism and self-righteousness, but when God himself shows up on the scene they crucify Him. The book begins with the revelation of a people who are worthy of the worst judgment possible, the wrath of God ought to be poured out on them. And yet Jesus tells us that is not what will happen. Instead, though they crucify Him, the reality is that Jesus gives up His life as a substitutionary sacrifice for these sinners. John the Baptist calls Him the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” By calling Jesus the Lamb of God John is connecting Him with the Old Testament Sacrificial system. Now the Old Testament sacrificial system was established by God and given to the people of Israel in order that they might be able to have communion with God Himself. It is one of those mercies God gave Israel by which they could continue to be in His presence despite their awful wickedness. It seems a bit arcane and even barbaric to us today, but it was the system which God set up, and the reason He established it was not because the death of a sheep somehow actually paid for the sins of the people, but because it pointed them to the real “lamb of God” who would pay the price on their behalf. You see the Old Testament Sacrificial system was never satisfactory, but it pointed to Jesus who would ultimately satisfy the justice of God by dying in the place of sinners.
So John the Baptizer is essentially calling Jesus the Fulfillment of Old Testament Sacrifices! The author of Hebrews does this too. Listen to Hebrews 10:11-12:
11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. (Hebrews 10:11-12)
Jesus finished it. When he made his sacrifice, what did he do…He sat down! It was done once and for all! Jesus’ sacrifice was necessary because of our own sinfulness, and it is his righteousness given to us that makes us right in God’s eyes. So Christians are, in the Apostle Paul’s words, “the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The problem, of course, is that if we’re honest Christians we look at our lives and say, “I don’t really look or feel like the righteousness of God.” And that was true of the early church too, who are a continued testimony to God’s faithfulness in spite of our unfaithfulness.
We’ll begin with the Corinthian church, which was a real mess. The setting for Paul’s address to this church is one where accountability is loose if not non-existent. A member in the church is having an affair with his step-mother and not only is the church not rebuking him, but they are actually proud of their tolerance. This hardly sounds like a church sanctified and worthy of God’s continued support and affection, and this is only one of the many problems the Corinthians were having.[1] Yet for all their problems Paul says to them, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3). It is “our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul counts them among the children of God, despite their disobedience.
Examples just like the Corinthians abound in the New Testament. The Apostle Peter is a good example of a man who loves Jesus and believes the gospel, yet at some point in his ministry he sins so terribly that Paul is forced to publicly rebuke him (Galatians 2:11). Yet we are not given the impression from this, or any other text, that Peter has somehow fallen away from grace, or is no longer a child of God, that God has abandoned Him because of this failure. No, it is simply another example of God’s love and mercy to those who don’t deserve it. The Apostle John highlights this powerfully when he speaks of Christians and sin in his epistle.
John says that Christians who have fellowship with Jesus do not walk in darkness (1:6) and yet he also readily admits that we sin. He writes it this way:
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)
The goal, for John, is that we as Christians would not sin, and yet the good news is that if we sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Nowhere in Scripture is this tension more realized than in Paul’s words in Romans chapter 7.
Though it is regularly debated I believe that Paul, in Romans 7:14-25, is contending that he, as a Christian, struggles greatly with indwelling sin. Here is how he describes it himself:
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 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. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 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. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 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. (Romans 7:14-25)
The debate regarding this text is over whether Paul is here speaking as a pre-converted Jew (i.e. role playing as himself before he came to Christ), or if he is speaking plainly about his life post-conversion and his struggle with indwelling sin. I am firmly convinced of the later for multiple reasons.
A surface level reading of this text in many ways sounds just like the cry of our own hearts. Many Christians, if not all, have exclaimed “I don’t understand what I am doing. I don’t do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate!” We all have had experiences where, as Christians, we struggle with sin and wrestle with the desire to honor Jesus and the frustration of still giving into sin. Of course our experience alone is not enough to dictate the interpretation of this passage, so let’s look at the other arguments for interpreting this passage as a post-conversion narration.
For starters Paul speaks in first-person present voice (saying “I”). The most natural way to understand this text, then, is as a present tense text. Paul is talking about his experience right now. We have no logical reason for suddenly assuming he switches to a historic present voice. Second, Paul speaks of his desire to obey God in such a manner that reflects the desire of a true follower of Christ, not an unregenerate Pharisee. He says, “I do not do what I want.” What does he “want,” well it is the opposite of what he hates, and what he hates is “evil”. He says, “I agree with the law that it is good.” He says, “I know nothing good dwells in me” (i.e. he recognized his sinful state apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit). He says, “I have the desire to do what is right.” He says, “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being.” These are the words of a man whose eyes have been opened to the gospel. An unregenerate man cannot say that he loves and delights in the law of God and that he desires to do the good that God commands. Paul seems very clearly to be speaking of his current life as a Christian. Thirdly, John Piper has keenly observed that Paul nowhere else in his pre-conversion summaries describes himself as tormented and torn between good and evil. Piper writes, “So Paul saw his life before his conversion as a life of unrivaled zeal for the law and the traditions. He doesn’t give us any hint of torment or conflict or inner division as we see in Romans 7.”[2] He adds:
So it seems to me that what we are reading in Romans 7:14-25 is not Paul’s description of his pre-Christian experience, but of part of his Christian experience. The real battle with loving the law and hating what we do against the law begins when God saves us and gives us a spiritual taste for God’s glory and for the obedience of faith and for what the law is really pointing toward in a life of love. So I think it is more likely that the conflict we read about here is part of Paul’s Christian experience than his pre-Christian experience.[3]
So what we have here again, in the life and language of the Apostle Paul, is a Christian who still struggles with sin and deserves to be disconnected from the family of God. But Paul concludes this frustrated cry with these words, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Now why does Paul add these words after his rant? Because he knows for him, and for us all, the only hope we have of our salvation is not our perfect righteousness post-conversion, but the sacrifice of Christ for us. It is always upon Jesus’ death that we rest for our salvation, nothing less and nothing more.[4]
This brief sweep through the Scriptures is simply a testimony to God’s faithfulness. It is an articulation that we are not merely saved by grace, but we are preserved by grace. It is through this hermeneutical lens that we must, then, view the discussion regarding the “perseverance of the saints.” In this way we are not battling proof texts against proof texts, but rather we are allowing the Biblical framework to shape our understanding of both sets of passages. The Bible interprets itself, this means we must not pull texts out of context or out of the larger picture of the Scriptures themselves. Let the text, not our theological systems or personal convictions, dictate the interpretation and doctrinal understanding.
[1] Others included quarreling over ministries, over wisdom, and over eschatology. Each of which was increasingly driving a wedge into the church that was doomed to split it.
[2] “Who is This Divided Man? Part 3.”
[3] Ibid.
[4] I understand that those who are ardently opposed to this interpretation of Romans 7 will point out that Paul’s language is suggestive of slavery to sin, which as a Christian he no longer has. In response I will say that this is true. We are free from the power of sin and Paul says that just a few chapters before. Yet Paul also states that we may give ourselves over to be slaves again to sin. He says that we should not make ourselves slaves to unrighteousness, but slaves to righteousness. So we can, in practice, make ourselves slaves again to sin, subjecting ourselves to its bondage and rule. We know this language reflects our own frustrations with sins at various times. Even though we know we can control our bodies it feels very much like we cannot. Now Paul is not here arguing that we are helpless victims to our sins and we have an excuse to continue in them, no he says we need to put to death the deeds of the flesh by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. So this interpretation is not an argument for giving up on our struggle with sin, it is wake up call that we need to trust Christ for our salvation and continue to fight the good fight of faith.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 