Romans 7:14-25: The Christian's Remaining Sin and Hope for Future Deliverance (part 1)

by Danny Pelichowski

Introduction

What we believe as Christians about the Bible effects how we live in a fallen world. The Bible teaches that the remaining consequences of our sin are intimately related to the planet we live in as well as in our own lives. Our motivation for godly living should not be a worldly set of moral guidelines devoid of a Christian worldview that emphasizes mere virtuous living without Biblical presuppositions. Rather, we should look to God for help in the Christian life with a deep rooted recognition that sin is a problem that we cannot solve. This reality is not only for those outside of the faith but especially for those for those of the household of God. It is the Christian and not the unbeliever who must realize the great weightiness of his own fallen and corrupt nature before and after his conversion and praise God for definitively dealing with his sin problem. David exclaims “blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” [1] The Christian has been forgiven and his sinful actions will not merit him eternal death in hell. The great act of justification where God declares his elect to be righteous though they are not righteous in themselves because they are sinners must be in the forefront of our minds when we move forward as Christians to fight against sinful desires and fleshly temptations. The book of Romans deals with these and other important truths about the gospel.

We will narrow our discussion to one aspect of soteriology discussed in Romans, namely sanctification. The Christian life (sanctification) is a glorious reality to meditate upon and is quite miraculous indeed. The miracle is seen when a sinner deserving eternal conscious punishment in hell is no longer deserving of hell, not because he ceases to be a sinner but because his sins have been paid for by Jesus Christ. The passage in Romans that will be dealt with in this paper is not short of much controversy. The interpretation the Christian gives on this passage reveals a great deal about his view of the Christian life. Romans 7:14-25 has been a divisive passage of Scripture amongst Christians since the early church. It is the famous passage that describes the “wretched” and divided man who cannot do the good that he desires to do. There have been many interpretations as to what this passage actually means but the scope of this paper will be limited to a discussion of orthodox Christian interpretations. Pelagian arguments that deny original sin as well as Wesleyan sinless perfection interpretations of this passage are omitted as unbiblical explanations unworthy of consideration in the limited space of this paper. However, orthodox Christian explanations of this passage have differed and only interpretation that teach that Christians still struggle with remaining sin will be addressed in this paper. It will be argued that this passage is written by Paul as a Christian and is the passage of full mention dealing with the inevitable struggle every Christian has with indwelling sin. There are many objections to this view to be certain from godly men and it is the intention of this paper to address these objections as well as putting forth arguments from godly men who wholeheartedly agree and defend the thesis of this paper.
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1. Romans 4:7-8 All quotations use the English Standard Version of the Bible