Romans lecture Part 22

Lecture: by Dr. Robert A. Morey

Notes: by Danny Pelichowski

Romans part 22

Lecture update:

• The apostle Paul is being autobiographical in Romans 7 as he talks about his conversion in vs. 7 and struggle with covetousness.
• Paul finally came to understand that he was a sinner through the law.

Romans 7:14

• A dramatic change of tense is found in this passage changing from a past autobiographical discussion to the present autobiographical tense.
• The law is spiritual because it is from the Holy Spirit and pertains to the inward heart of man as opposed to the merely external visible laws that the Pharisees focused on.
• There is a dramatic break in terms of the grammar of the text moving from the autobiographical discussion of his conversion experience in the past when he came to know Christ to now talking about his present condition in the Christian life.
• Vs. 14: “The law is spiritual but I “am” (not was, not used to be) of the flesh, sold under sin.”
• It is often the case that the Arminian, Keswick, Higher life, deeper life, holiness, and charismatic movement fail to observe the grammar of this text and continue the interpretation that the apostle Paul was speaking of his unconverted and unregenerate state.
• Others say that the apostle Paul was speaking about the past defeated Christian life when Paul was a “carnal” Christian. “I am of the flesh” the King James says “I am carnal” sold under sin. They particularly like vs. 25 to show that at that point Paul entered victorious living and no longer had a struggle with sin.
• Both of these interpretations do not fit the context and grammar of the text. Many of those who believe that the apostle Paul is still discussing the unregenerate Christian life take the view of Pelagius. He was a monk in the early church, condemned as a heretic who taught that there is no such thing as original sin. We are all born in the perfected state like Adam and Eve in the garden and have our own opportunity to sin or obey God.

Is Romans 7:14-25 discussing the unregenerate man?

• Vs. 22 “I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man.”
• Does this really sound like the unregenerate person?
• When we were unregenerate did we rejoice in the Law of God when it told us we cannot do the sinful things that we wanted to do?
• Is the world proclaiming “hallelujah for the Ten Commandments, lets put them on the walls of every school in the country?”
• No! The unregenerate does everything to get away from the law of God and does not understand or seek after God because there is no fear of God before their eyes.
• Is it true that the unregenerate person wants to do what is good and then struggles? No, it’s the other way around, they want to do evil and they sometimes find difficulty doing it because their conscience bothers them.
• Therefore, the Pelagian interpretation is not proper, neither is the Keswick or “higher life” interpretation that teaches the “carnal” Christian life. This interpretation is false because it teaches that when you have “arrived” in the Christian life you no longer have a struggle with sin (at this point in the audio Dr. Morey asserts that “in this congregation you have never heard this idea or doctrine taught in the pulpit.” Amen to that! It was also my experience at FCC in Irvine that Dr. Bob never taught this heretical and confusing understanding of the Christian life. This is one of the many reasons that we appreciate Dr. Morey and his teaching ministry. He clears away much of the rubbish and false teaching that we were all fed at one point or another in other churches).

Dr. Morey’s biographical discussion about his early church years

• The first eight years of his Christian life he was in a church that yearly had a Keswick meeting or conference where various speakers would come and preach the “victorious life” and “sinless perfectionism.”
• They taught that it was possible to enter a stage in the Christian life when you no longer struggle with sin and “temptation rolled off your back like water off a ducks back.”
• “Sin had no allurement or attraction any longer.” The Christian was capable of saying no to sin and they could go for days, weeks, months, and years without committing even one sin.
• This view of the victorious sinless Christian life was presented to address the “carnal Christians” who were struggling with sin that they taught Paul was addressing in Romans 7:14-25.
• They brought the “great news” that Jesus Christ can enable you to enter into the victory and then you will be set free from the body of death entering into the experience of Romans 8 which is one of victory instead of defeat.
• Dr. Morey calls the above teaching a pipe dream that doesn’t work! He let go and let God, he practiced the know, reckon, yield, and obey method. And he followed the advice of Christian teachers like Alan Redpath, Steward Briscoe, Stephen Olford, and Major Ian Thomas and none of them led him to the sinless victorious life. While Dr. Morey wanted to live a sinless life he found it impossible and the only things this teaching gave him were health issues and sheer confusion.

The realistic view of sin found in the Bible

• The Bible is utterly realistic portraying people just as they are.
• If the Bible were the product of man’s ingenuity it would not include the sins of the saints. Some Muslims claim the fallibility of the Bible because it portrays sinful prophets while Muhammad was pictured as sinless. According to Islam prophets should be without sin. Dr. Morey flips it on them saying that the Koran is not true because it wasn’t honest because all of sinned and are right now falling short of the glory of God.

Romans 7:14-15

• “for that which I am doing I do not understand”
• In our Christian experience we all have to admit our own pangs of conscience. When we look into the mirror we cannot honestly pretend that we are sinless. We yell at our wives, husbands, kids. We lose our temper at work, we get greedy and covetous, tell white lies, say things we shouldn’t say and do things we shouldn’t do.
• We may be dedicated Christians trying to live for the Lord but in the end we know that we are still carnal because when we look at our lives we find that there is a lot about us that isn’t spiritual.
• In J.C Ryle’s book on holiness has a section where he quotes the great men and women of God. The greater they were the lower the view they had of themselves and they all said “I’m carnal.”
• The deeper you go in the Christian life the deeper you understand your sin. The more you realize your wickedness and wretchedness the more you realize your need of Jesus. The more spiritual you are the more unspiritual you view yourself. The more Godly you become the more ungodliness you will see in your lives.
• The most mature Christian is the one who senses his immaturity the greatest NOT the Christian who runs around claiming that they are sinless and haven’t sinned in 15 years. This type of Christian is shallow and not mature.
• In verse 14 the apostle Paul say’s that he is carnal and sometimes he feels in bondage to sin. This is the experience of the Christian life. For example there are habits or besetting sins that we have not been able to completely be rid of in the Christian life.
• In the Christian life when we sin we do not understand our actions. Not only is the action utterly sinful they are also downright stupid. “For that which I am doing I do not understand.” The apostle Paul admits that sometimes he does things that he does not understand why he did what he did. Paul says “I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.” If we are to be honest we experience the tension of knowing what we aught to do and then not doing it. Dr. Bob gives a honest personal experience of sometimes neglecting his family because of his preoccupation with work when he knows he should be paying attention to their needs but gets occupied with the next book he has to write “mulling over the problem of evil while his son is upset and he doesn’t even know it.”
• It’s amazing that we know what do to and we don’t do it, and we know what not to do and we determine not to do and we still do it!
• This is the conundrum that the apostle Paul was puzzled by.

Romans 7:16

• “If I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the law confessing that the law is good.” The law is good because it points out sin in our lives because we shouldn’t have those kinds of thoughts and we shouldn’t be doing that.

Romans 7:18

• “For I know that nothing good dwells in me.” Can we reach the point in the Christian life where we can smile and proclaim that “a lot of good dwells in me?” Of course not! The moment you think that you can put our head on the pillow not needed forgiveness is either the moment that you have apostatized from the Christ life or you are terrible deluded!

Romans 7:17

• “So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
• Paul uses a literary device called personification where he speaks about sin as if there is another person inside of him.
• Paul is talking about sin in a figurative way and is not literally saying that there are two Paul’s. We must not misunderstand what was meant to be metaphorical as literal.
• Paul is using metaphorical language to describe the struggle with sin where half of him wants to do what is right and half of him wants to do what is wrong.
• Verse 18: the wishing or desire is present in me but the doing of the good is not present.
• For Christians there is a desire to do what is right but sometimes when we try to carry it out we find ourselves doing the opposite.
• In the Christian life there are times when we consciously plan on having a godly attitude or handling a situation in a virtuous way and when we enter the situation we end up doing opposite of what we had determined to do.

Romans 7:19

• “For the good that I wish to do I don’t do, but I end up practicing the very evil I don’t want to do.”
• There is a difference between “the I want too’s” and what we end up doing.
• This is a characteristic of a true Christian.
• An unregenerate person does not have the I want too’s.
• Unbelievers don’t say “oh that I could be godly,” “oh that I might be holy,” “oh that I might love the Lord more,” “that I might read your word more, or that I might pray more.”
• It’s the Christian that gets guilty about not praying enough or that he or she is not being kind enough.
• An unregenerate person doesn’t think this way. For example: an unbeliever at work does not worry about the sin of gossip and it doesn’t bother them to be mean or to lie.
• Romans 7 is talking about the child of God who is wrestling with sin and struggling with iniquity because he does not want to sin.
• The child of God does not want to sin but ends up doing what he does not want to do.

Romans 7:20

• “Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”
• Paul is communicating that there is a set in him of habits and desire’s within that he cannot seem to control.
• When you are born again God’s puts new desires in your heart: you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you want to love the Lord, you want to live a godly life, you really want to have family devotions and pray with your children every night.
• If you are not a child of God you never think about these things because it doesn’t cross your mind because there is no want too.
• If there is no struggle with sin it’s because you are dead in sin.
• Dead people do not struggle with sin, if you are struggling with sin it’s because you are alive and that you are a child of God and you hate sin.

Romans 7:21

• Evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good.
• If you are a child of God you know this problem because you want to do what is right and you know what is right because you have the Law of God.
• The willing is there but you can’t seem to pull it off.

Romans 7:22

• “For I joyfully concur with the Law of God in the inner man.”
• Only a regenerate person can say this.
• Unbelievers do not concur with the Law of God in the inner man. They are not secretly and inwardly for it because they are rebellious against God and don’t want the Law of God.
• The child of God not only concurs but joyfully agrees with it.

Romans 7:23

• “But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.”
• There are two sets of drives: one for good and one for evil and we are struggling and fighting to do what is right but end up doing what is wrong.

Romans 7:24

• “Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death?”
• In Roman society one of the punishments for murder was to literally bind the body of your murder victim to you body arm to arm, leg to leg, so it rotted into your flesh and the one you killed would end up killing you in the end.
• This is the illustration that Paul uses asking: who will deliver me from this deadly body of sin that is strapped to my body that is a rotting stinking corpse?

Romans 7:25

• “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

• The Keswick or higher life teachers will stop at this point proclaiming that it is possible to be delivered from the struggle with sin. How do you do it? “Just come down to the alter now and give your all on the alter to Jesus.” Just rest, resting in the joy of what though art.” “Know, reckon, yield, obey!” “There is a ten step plan, or the five step plan.” The trouble is that they don’t keep reading.
• The rest of verse 25 says that “I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
• As Christians we know the right way to treat our wives and kids, we know how to live right and in our mind we agree that the law is holy and righteous and true.
• But, on the other hand with my flesh I am serving the law of sin.
• On the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God but on the other I myself with my flesh am serving the law of sin.
• The apostle Paul throws us right back into the struggle at the end of verse 25.

Where is the victory?

• What about the “thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord?”
• There will be victory at death!
• When you die the body of sin will be cut off of you.
• What about the spirit? Hebrews 12:23b “the spirits of justified men and women now made perfect.”
• They were justified or declared righteous on earth and made righteous in heaven. They had imputed perfection on earth and now they have constitutional perfection in heaven. The spirit is perfected in the presence of the king when you die and go to heaven.
• What about the body? 1 Thessalonians 5:23 “now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete and without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
• We are made complete and without blame at the coming and return of Jesus Christ not at “the alter, the camp meeting, the invitation system, by speaking in tongues, or letting go and letting God.”
• When Christ returns our bodies will be totally sanctified.
• What does this mean? Philippians 3:20 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”
• He will transform our humble or humiliated body into a glorious body. We are going to be transformed when Jesus returns so that our fleshly body will no longer be in a state of humiliation but in a state of glorification.
• When is it that we receive this victory?
• We get half of it when we die entering glory where we no longer struggle with sin and it is completed after the resurrection.
• There is no hope that we will be sinless in this life prior to death and we will always have to struggle with sin.
• Does this mean that we should just give into sin and temptation?
• May it never be! We are supposed to struggle with sin. Don’t give into the evil motivations and drives, don’t yell and say things you aught not to say, don’t give into the impulses to immorality and to all the evil that simply floats around in your system.
• Instead we are to have the attitude of the apostle Paul where he was struggling against sin.
• What happens when you try and pray that you would not sin but end up doing what you tried so hard to refrain from?
• You repent of it, pick up the pieces and you say that the law of God is good and “I was the one that was wrong, I sinned, and Lord I want you to help me that the next time I am tempted in this way I wont sin.”
• We should emphasize in our Christian life the many occasions when we were tempted to do evil and we didn’t do it more than emphasizing the times we gave in.
• If we dwell simply on the occasions in which we gave into evil and sinned we will end up in a morbid, sad, and depressed Christian life.
• The wonder of the Christian life is not that we give into sin because anyone can do that. The amazement is when we don’t give into sin.
• We have to emphasize, meditate, and reflect on the times when we were tempted to think certain impure thoughts and we turned to Jesus for help and we didn’t think them. Or when you turned the channel on the T.V. when something tempting came on the program.
• We should thank the Lord when he enables you to refrain from sin because it is of his mercy.
• By doing this we can take an upbeat view of the Christian life instead of a downbeat view, we can be more optimistic than pessimistic and we can be happy Christians. Joy is still found in verse 22 in the midst of the struggle because even though at times we may be down but not out, we may loose the battle but not the war.
• We may sin at this particular point by giving into evil but that doesn’t mean that we will give into that same sin tomorrow. There will be another sin to struggle with tomorrow!
• Thanks be to God that when Jesus returns we will be delivered from our struggle with sin.
• The reality is that this deliverance will not happen until Christ returns and there will be a struggle with sin on this side of heaven.
• If you are truly saved there will be a struggle with sin and if you do not struggle you are not saved. If there is a struggle at least there’s life.
• Galatians 6 tells us that If we sow to the flesh we shall reap corruption, if we sow to the spirit we shall reap eternal life. Sow to the spirit, do those things which encourage your spiritual life.