Romans 7:14-25: The Christian's Remaining Sin and Hope for Future Deliverance (part 5)

by Danny Pelichowski

Biblical Presuppositions: The Regenerate Man

The believer, in contrast to the unbeliever is in humble recognition of his own sinfulness, not only before he was a Christian but especially as a Christian. The believer recognizes and daily repents of his sins as a Christian. The presuppositions that we must observe from the Bible is that a Christian in his regenerated new nature loves the fulfilled law of God, desires to please the Lord and actually does please the Lord, but also fails miserably to live perfectly in light of the law of Christ. The Christian has not been released from the noetic effects of the fall completely and can still say with Jeremiah that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”[15] The Christian as exemplified in Paul’s life in Romans 7:14-25 is not seeking to obey the fulfilled law of Christ to be made righteous before God. In fact, there is not an external self-righteousness that the believer seeks to feel assured before God in his own works in order to exalt himself before man. On the contrary, the Christian has received Christ’s righteousness that is completely separate from any so called righteousness of his own. It is the imputed righteousness of Christ that the believer boasts in and trusts upon for salvation. This does not mean that the believer no longer desires and strives for obedience to God’s law. However, his obedience is not to the Old Covenant Mosaic letter of the law but to the fulfilled spiritual law of Christ that exposes the inner recesses of the human heart. Even the Christians regenerated new heart is exposed as sinful, fleshly, and incapable of living up to the perfect, holy, and pure law of God. Therefore, the Christian can also say of himself that he is carnal and fleshly, sold to sin, and that he is a wretched and sinful man. Christians sin, not because of who they are in Christ but because of the remaining effects of the fall that is found in their flesh. Christians should grieve over their sin and strive towards holiness to please God and live the way they are called to live according to Scripture. That is exactly what we see Paul recognizing in Romans 7:14-25.

Introductory Objections

Many object that this text is not dealing with remaining sin because there is no victory to be found in this passage only complete and total defeat. Charles Leiter observes that “…the man in Romans 7 is not just battling with sin but utterly defeated by it, in stark contrast with Paul’s description of all true Christians in Romans 6 and Romans 7:1-6.”[16] It is true that there is utter defeat in this passage but it does not negate Christian experience. There are many reasons why the Christian must be in view in this passage and will be argued latter in this paper but for now a central point must be made in this regard. Romans 7:14-25 is a description made by Paul as a mature believer that the law is spiritual, righteous, holy, and good, and that he himself is carnal or fleshly in relationship to it. The defeat is so drastic because Paul is discussing the flesh that remains in him as a believer that he can never get rid of in this life. In light of this flesh and sin that remains he will never this side of heaven be in perfect harmony with the holy and perfect law of God as fulfilled in Christ. He will remain defeated and unable to fully obey the law. The man in Romans 7 just keeps on sinning and cannot rid himself of his remaining sin like the rest of the elect past, present, and future. We should not expect there to be any complete victory because we will always have to struggle against the flesh in our life on earth and will always fall short of what we desire to do. We fall short of our desire to keep the law of Christ perfectly which simply means to obey God as Christians without the blemishes of sinful desires and corruptions. If we do not recognize our own serious sinful desires and tendencies like Paul does and repent daily we are in essence acting like the Pharisee who puts confidence in the flesh. This false confidence may even be in a regenerated heart set on pleasing the Lord, free from complete bondage to sin. But even if we trust in ourselves as Christians to the exclusion of recognizing the serious effects of the remaining sin in our flesh our lives will be nothing more than glorified Christian humanism trusting in the regenerated human heart as opposed to trusting God daily for the strength to fight remaining sin.
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15. Jer 17:9
16. Charles Leiter Justification and Regeneration (Hannibal: Granted Ministries Press, 2009) 149