The totality of flooding this week in Texas from tropical storm Harvey has been devastating. 75 000 people called 911 seeking help. Calling out for help, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency deployed 900 personnel in search-and-rescue teams. A million liters of water, a million meals, 20, 520 tarps and 70 generators. In total, FEMA has 1800 personnel deployed in an effort to deliver people from the horrific flooding. Although the flooding in Texas is devastating, the storm is continuing to Louisiana. (http://nationalpost.com/news/world/please-dont-give-up-on-us-houston-police-chief-says-to-stranded-residents)
Of course we know that natural disasters occur all throughout the globe, displacing people. War, famine, disease and an endless list of events drive people to call out for deliverance. But of all the catastrophes, one has the most devastating consequences: sin. Even for the redeemed, we seem to be plagued with sin. We want to honor God, but we do the things we try to avoid and fail to do the things we know we should do. In one of the most personal accounts of inner conflict, in Romans 7, the apostle Paul describes a profound conflict with himself, where one part of him is pulling one direction while another part is pulling the opposite. The conflict is real and it is intense, and it is one that any redeemed person can relate to.
The more we honestly measure themselves against God’s standards of righteousness the more we realize how much we fall short. The closer we get to God, the more we see our own sin. Thus it is the immature, fleshly, and legalistic persons who tend to live under the illusion that they are spiritual and that they measure up well by God’s standards. The level of spiritual insight, brokenness, contrition, and humility that characterize the person depicted in Romans 7 are marks of a spiritual and mature believer, who before God has no trust in their own goodness and achievements. When God called us to be Christian people he called us to lifetime struggles against sin. ( Boice, J. M. (1991–). Romans: The Reign of Grace (Vol. 2, p. 766). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.)
In describing the work of the law in conflict with his personal desires, in Romans 7:14-25 Paul describes 1) The confusion (Romans 7:14–16), 2) The corruption (Romans 7:17–20) and 3) The conclusion (Romans 7:21–25). (Willmington, H. L. (1999). The Outline Bible (Ro 7:8–22). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.) in seeing Christ as the ultimate deliverer of our inner conflict.
In Understanding how the law is in conflict with our personal desires we see:
1) The confusion (Romans 7:14–16)
Romans 7:14–16 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For 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. (ESV)
In understanding how the law is in conflict with personal desires, Paul’s frustration is twofold. First, He doesn’t do the things he wants to do (7:14–15a, 16a), and then He does the things he doesn’t want to do (7:15b, 16b). He begins the explanation with the conjunction for which carries the idea of because and indicates that Paul is not introducing a new subject but is giving a defense of what he has just said. He begins by again affirming that the Law is not the problem, because it is spiritual. Salvation by grace through faith does not replace or devalue the Law, because the law was never a means of salvation. Hebrews 11 and many other passages of Scripture make clear that the only means of salvation has always been the provision and power of God’s grace working through the channel of man’s faith. But since it has its origin in God, (the law) must of necessity give expression to the holiness of God’s character (Mounce, R. H. (1995). Romans (Vol. 27, p. 168). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.). It is right to look to the law for moral guidance, but wrong to look to it for saving power (Stott, J. R. W. (2001). The message of Romans: God’s good news for the world (p. 205). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.).
“But I,” Paul continues, “am still of the flesh. He, like all believers are still earth-bound and mortal.” It is important to note that the apostle does not say he is still in the flesh but that he is still of it. Paul has already explained that believers are no longer “in the flesh” (Romans 7:5; 8:8), no longer bound by and enslaved to its sinfulness as they once were. The idea is that, although believers are not still in the flesh, the flesh is still in them. In his first letter to the church at Corinth, Paul describes the Christians there as “men of flesh … babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1). As the apostle confesses later in the present passage, using the present tense, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (1 Cor. 7:18). Even as an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul possessed a remnant of the sinfulness that characterizes all human beings, including those who, in Christ, are saved from its total mastery and its condemnation. Such a person, deploring evil in his (past) fallen nature, delighting himself in God’s law, and longing for the promised full and final salvation, seems to provide ample evidence of being regenerate and even mature (Stott, J. R. W. (2001). The message of Romans: God’s good news for the world (p. 206). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.)
Please turn to 1 John 1 (p.1021)
In relating his personal experience in Romans 7:14–25 Paul consistently used the present tense whereas he had used the imperfect and aorist tenses. He is describing his present conflict as a Christian with indwelling sin and its continuing efforts to control his daily life. The clause, “sold under/into bondage to sin”, describes an unregenerate person; but sin also resides in a believer, who is still subject to sin’s penalty of physical death. As a result, indwelling sin continues to seek to claim what it considers its property even after one has become a Christian.( Witmer, J. A. (1985). Romans. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 467). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.)
The dichotomy of a free life of the redeemed yet continued struggle with sin is explained in 1 John, as John says:
1 John 1:5-10 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (ESV)
• Thomas Scott, an evangelical preacher of the Church of England in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, wrote that when a believer “compares his actual attainments with the spirituality of the law, and with his own desire and aim to obey it, he sees that he is yet, to a great degree, carnal in the state of his mind, and under the power of evil propensities, from which (like a man sold for a slave) he cannot wholly emancipate himself. He is carnal in exact proportion to the degree in which he falls short of perfect conformity to the law of God” (cited in Geoffrey B. Wilson, Romans: A Digest of Reformed Comment [London: Banner of Truth, 1969], 121).
• Sin is so wretched and powerful that, even in a redeemed person, it hangs on and contaminates life and frustrates our inner desire to obey the will of God.
Paul’s proof in verse 15, that sin still indwelt him was in the reality when he declared: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do/am not practicing what I want/what I would like to do. Ginõskõ (understand) has the basic meaning of taking in knowledge in regard to something or someone, knowledge that goes beyond the merely factual. By further extension, the word was used in the sense of approving or accepting something or someone (cf. 1 Cor. 8:3). Paul found himself doing things he did not approve of. It was not that he was unable to do a particular good thing but that when he saw the fullness and grandeur of God’s law, he was not able to measure up completely. It was not that he could never accomplish any good at all, nor that he could never faithfully obey God. The apostle was rather expressing an inner turmoil of the most profound kind, of sincerely desiring in his heart to fulfill the spirit as well as the letter of the law (Cf. Rom.7:6) but realizing that he was unable to live up to the Lord’s perfect standards and his own heart’s desire. Paul wants us to feel the emotion he experiences in trying to live up to God’s standards in his own strength. … A believer who tries to please God in his or her own strength will always come to disheartening, aching frustration—always! (Hughes, R. K. (1991). Romans: righteousness from heaven (p. 143). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.)
In glaring contrast to his preconversion self-satisfaction in thinking himself blameless before God’s law (Phil. 3:6), Paul now realized how wretchedly short of God’s perfect law he lived, even as a Spirit-indwelt believer and an apostle of Jesus Christ. That spirit of humble contrition is a mark of every spiritual disciple of Christ, who cries out, “Lord, I can’t be all you want me to be, I am unable to fulfill your perfect, holy, and glorious law.” In great frustration and sorrow one painfully confesses with Paul, I do not do what Id want to do.
In verse 16, Paul now deals with the reason, or the source, of his inability to perfectly fulfill the law, and he begins by staunchly defending the divine standard. “Now if I do what I do not want/the very thing I do not wish to do,” we must remember that it is not the law’s fault. He says that “I agree with the Law” in every detail. The new self, the new creation that placed God’s incorruptible and eternal seed within him, is wholeheartedly agreeing with/confessing that the law is good.
Illustration: 404: Jumping to Defy Law
Jan Davis, sixty, a professional parachutist, was BASE jumping when she fell to her death. Her husband, who was filming the jump, and several reporters were stunned when Davis crashed onto the rocks. She was jumping off the thirty-two-hundred-foot granite cliff, El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, California, when her chute failed to open. She and the other jumpers knew that BASE jumping was illegal in Yosemite Park. The law was passed because six people and numerous others had been injured in Yosemite due to BASE jumping. The five jumpers, including Davis, were protesting the park’s restrictions by proving the sport is safe. They knew the law, but they deliberately chose to defy it. Davis paid for that disobedience with her life. In a similar way, many people think they can deliberately violate God’s law. Eventually they learn, sometimes the hard way, that God’s laws exist to protect us. (Jonathan Mutchler, “Parachutist Perishes,” PreachingToday.comas found in Larson, C. B., & Ten Elshof, P. (2008). 1001 illustrations that connect (p. 229). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.)
In Understanding how the law is in conflict with our personal desires we the problem with
2) The corruption (Romans 7:17–20) of his flesh.
Romans 7:17-20 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. (ESV)
What then, is the problem? What is the source of our failure to live up to God’s standards and our own inner desires as redeemed of God? “Now in verse 17, it is “no longer I who” is the one to “do it,” Paul explains, “but sin that dwells within me.” Paul was not trying to escape personal responsibility. He was not mixing the pure gospel with Greek philosophical dualism, which later plagued the early church and is popular in some church circles today. The apostle was not teaching that the spirit world is all good and the physical world all evil, as the influential Gnostic philosophy of his day contended. Proponents of that ungodly school of thought invariably develop moral insensitivity. They justify their sin by claiming it is entirely the product of their physical bodies, which are going to be destroyed anyway, and that the inner, spiritual person remains innately good and is untouched by and unaccountable for anything the body does. Sin is not a power that operates “outside” the person, making him do its bidding; sin is something resident in the very being, “dwelling” within the person, ruling over him or her like a master over a slave (Moo, D. J. (1996). The Epistle to the Romans (p. 458). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.).
The apostle had already confessed his own complicity in his sin (1 Jn. 1:9-10). There had been a radical change in his life, as there has been in the life of every Christian. Paul’s new I, his new inner self, no longer approves of the sin that still clings to him through the flesh. “No longer” (Ouketi) is a negative adverb of time, indicating a complete and permanent change. Whereas before his conversion his inner self approved of the sin he committed, now his inner self, a completely new inner self, strongly disapproves (Gal. 2:20).
Please turn to Galatians 5 (p.975)
After salvation, sin, like a deposed and exiled ruler, no longer reigns in a person’s life, but it manages to survive. It no longer resides in the innermost self but finds its residual dwelling in the flesh, in the unredeemed humanness that remains until a believer meets the Lord.
Paul further explained to the Galatians:
Galatians 5:16-25 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 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. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit (ESV).
• Note in v. 16, that Paul does not say that we will not have “the desires of the flesh”, but calls on people to be controlled by the Holy Spirit and not “gratify” those desires that are of the flesh. This struggle, v.17, is expressed as he stated in Romans. 7:16. To live under the Law is to live by the flesh, even when one is not actually committing sin, because that is the only avenue available to the legalist. The flesh is powerless to fulfill the Law, and the Law is powerless to conquer the flesh. Those who live controlled by the flesh live a life dominated by sins mentioned in v.19-21, and are therefore, not of the Spirit. But if the Spirit controls a person, there is evident fruit of such as specified in v. 22-23. Believers new nature is specified in v.24, as those who “have crucified the flesh” and we are therefore called in v. 25 to live lives corresponding to our new natures, by being controlled by the Spirit of God.
The second lament starting in verse 18, follows the same pattern as the first: the condition, the proof, and the source. In order that his readers will not misunderstand, the apostle explains that the me in whom nothing good dwells is not the same as the “I” he has just mentioned in the previous verse and which referred to his new, redeemed, incorruptible, Christlike nature. The part of his present being in which sin still dwells is his flesh, his old humanness, which has not yet been completely transformed. Again he points out (see vv. 5, 14) that the only residence of sin in a believer’s life is their flesh, which is the unredeemed humanness. The flesh in itself is not sinful, but it is still subject to sin and furnishes sin a beachhead from which to operate in a believer’s life.
Paul had a deep “desire to do what is right/good”. This “desire” to do God’s will was very much present within his redeemed being. When Paul says that he does “not (have) the ability to carry (this desire) out”, he is not saying that he was totally incapable of doing anything that was good and acceptable. He is saying that he was incapable of completely fulfilling the requirements of God’s holy law (Phil. 3:12-14). People may have the desire or wish to do what is right/good but they lack the empowerment without God (Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Ro 7:18). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.).
The other side of the predicament, Paul says in verse 19, is that “I do not do/practice the good I want, but the evil that I do not want”. The present-tense verbs show that this is a long-term practice he is grappling with. Paul desires to do good things, but his practice does not attain them. Again, it is important to understand that this great inner struggle with sin is not experienced by the undeveloped and childish believer but by the mature person of God. As a believer grows in their spiritual life, they inevitably will have both an increased hatred of sin and an increased love for righteousness. As desire for holiness increases, so will sensitivity to and antipathy toward sin. (Custer, S. (2007). The righteousness of God: a commentary on Romans (p. 140). Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press.)
Paul repeats what he said in verses 16–17, now in verse 20, with only slight variation. “Now if I do what I do not want”, he argues with simple logic, then it follows that “it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”. The apostle again uses the phrase no longer, referring to the time before his conversion. Before salvation it was the inner I who sinned and agreed with the sin. An unsaved person does not truly have a conflict with sin. But now we see the conflict of a regenerate person who knows, loves, chooses and longs for God’s law, but finds that by himself he cannot do it. His whole being (especially his mind and will) is set upon God’s law. He wants to obey it. And when he sins, it is against his reason, his desire, his consent. But the law cannot help him. Only the power of the indwelling Spirit could change things…( Stott, J. R. W. (2001). The message of Romans: God’s good news for the world (p. 212). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.)
Illustration: Overcoming sin
How can sin be rendered powerless? Consider the effect of gravity on a book. Gravity would cause an unsupported book to fall, but gravity can be rendered “powerless” against the book by simply placing a table under it. As long as the table is under the book, gravity cannot cause it to fall. Of course gravity has not really lost its power nor is it no longer present. It is just that the table is “stronger” than gravity’s effect on the book. For the Christian, the Holy Spirit is like that table and our (desire for) sin is like gravity’s pull. As long as we allow the Holy Spirit to hold us up, which places our dependence on his power to give us victory over sin, our sinful impulses have no power to pull us down.(1543 as found in Michael P. Green. (2000). 1500 illustrations for biblical preaching (p. 423). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.)
Finally, in:
3)The conclusion (Romans 7:21–25) we can now see Christ as the ultimate deliverer of our inner conflict, understanding how the law is in conflict with our personal desires
Romans 7:21–25 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. (ESV)
The continuing presence of evil in a believer’s life is so universal that Paul refers to it not as an uncommon thing but as such a common reality as to be called a continually operating spiritual law/principle. Lingering sin does battle with every right/good thing a believer desires to do, every good thought, every good intention, every good motive, every good word, every good deed. The Lord warned Cain when he became angry that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted but his own was not: “Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7). Sin continues to crouch at the door, even of believers, in order to lead people into disobedience.
Although sin resides, it is no longer the believers master. The first part of Paul’s proof in verse 22, that sin is no longer his master and that he is indeed redeemed by God and made into the likeness of Christ is his being able to say, I delight/joyfully concur with the law of God in my inner being. In other words, the apostle’s justified inner being is on the side of the law of God and no longer on the side of sin, as is true of every unsaved person. Psalm 119 offers many striking parallels to Romans 7. Over and over and in a multitude of ways, the psalmist praises and exalts the Lord and His Word: “I have rejoiced in the way of Thy testimonies, as much as in all riches” (v. 14), “I shall delight in Thy commandments, which I love” (v. 47), “Thy law is my delight” (v. 77), “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path” (v. 105), and “Thy word is very pure, therefore Thy servant loves it” (v. 140). It has always been true that the godly person’s “delight is in the law of the Lord” (Ps. 1:2).
Paul’s inner being, the deepest recesses of his redeemed person, the bottom of his heart, hungers and thirsts for God’s righteousness (see Matt. 5:6) and seeks first His kingdom and His righteousness (cf. Matt. 6:33). “Though our outer man is decaying,” Paul told the Corinthian believers, “yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). He prayed that Christians in Ephesus would “be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man” (Eph. 3:16).
The second part of Paul’s proof that sin is no longer his master and that he is indeed redeemed by God and made into the likeness of Christ involves a corresponding but opposite principle now in verse 23, another/different law, which does not operate in the inner person but in the members of the believer’s body, that is, in his unredeemed and still sinful humanness. That opposing principle is continually waging war against the law of the believer’s mind, a term that here corresponds to the redeemed inner person about whom Paul has been talking. Paul is not setting up a dichotomy between the mind and the body but is contrasting the inner person, or the redeemed “new creature” (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17), with the “flesh” (Rom. 7:25), that remnant of the old person that will remain with each believer until we receive our glorified bodies (8:23). Paul is not saying his mind is always spiritual and his body is always sinful. In fact, he confesses that, tragically, the fleshly principle undermines the law of his mind and temporarily makes him “captive/a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in (his) members. Psalm 119 also parallels Romans 7 on the down side, in regard to the believer’s constant struggle with the sin that one hates and longs to be rid of. Like believers of every age, the psalmist sometimes was plagued by evil forces and people that warred against God and his own inner person. “My soul is crushed with longing after Thine ordinances at all times” (v. 20), he lamented, “My soul cleaves to the dust” (v. 25), and, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Thy statutes” (v. 71). He repeatedly pleads with God to revive him (v. 25, 88, 107, 149, 154). With the deep humility that characterizes every mature believer, the writer ends by confessing, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep,” by imploring God to “seek Thy servant,” and finally by affirming again, “I do not forget Thy commandments” (v. 176).
Please turn to 2 Corinthians 10 (p.968)
As Paul has already mentioned in the first of verse 23, that the source of his sin is no longer the inner man, which is now redeemed and being sanctified. Like all believers while they are in this earthly life, Paul found himself sometimes as here describes now in the second part of verse 23, to be a captive/prisoner to the law of sin, the principle that evil was still present in him (7:21). But now sin was only in the members of his body, in his old self (Eph. 4:22), which was still “dead because of sin” (Rom. 8:10). It is not that Paul’s salvation was imperfect or in any way deficient. From the moment one receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the believer is completely acceptable by God and ready to meet Him. But as long as one remains in their mortal body, in their old unredeemed humanness, one remains subject to temptation and sin. Paul explained to the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 10:1-6 I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!— 2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete. (ESV)
• In other words, although a Christian cannot avoid living in the flesh, we can and should avoid walking according to the flesh in its sinful ways.
Paul’s final lament starting in verse 24, is even more intense than the others. He cries out in utter anguish and frustration, Wretched man that I am! Why does he see himself life this? People perceive themselves to be sinners in direct proportion as they have previously discovered the holiness of God and His law (cf. Ps. 38:14; 130: 1-5). Paul next asks a question to which he well knows the answer: Who will deliver me/set me free from this body of this death? He again makes clear that the cause of his frustration and torment is this body of this death. It is only a believer’s body that remains subject to sin and death. To “deliver/set free” (Rhuomai) has the basic idea of rescuing from danger and was used of a soldier’s going to a wounded comrade on the battlefield and carrying him to safety. Paul longed for the day when he would be rescued from the last vestige of his old, sinful, unredeemed flesh.
Finally in verse 25, without hesitation, the apostle testifies to the certainty of his eventual rescue and gives thanks to his Lord even before he is set free: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! he exults. Frustrating and painful as a believer’s present struggle with sin may be, that temporary earthly predicament is nothing compared with the eternal glory that awaits him in heaven. (Rom. 8:23; cf. 1 Cor. 15:52–53, 56–57; 2 Cor. 5:4). In Christ we are being delivered from sin’s penalty (1 Cor. 1:30; Isa. 53:10), power (Gal. 5:16), and presence (1 John 3:2. All our guilt was placed upon the Savior by God the Father, who made Christ our redemption (1 Cor. 1:30) (Barnhouse, D. G. (1961). God’s Freedom: Romans 6:1–7:25 (p. 245). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.).In Christ we are ones who have been saved from sin. We are being saved from sin. We will yet be saved from sin. But until the day of final deliverance it is our continuing responsibility to fight on (Boice, J. M. (1991–). Romans: The Reign of Grace (Vol. 2, p. 777). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.).
But Paul’s primary emphasis in the present passage, however, is not on the believer’s eventual deliverance from sin’s presence but on the conflict with sin that torments every spiritually sensitive child of God. Paul therefore ends by summarizing the two sides of that struggle: So then, I myself serve the serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh the law of sin. In the poem Maud (x. 5), one of Tennyson’s characters yearns, “Ah for a new man to arise in me, that the man I am may cease to be!” The Christian can say that a new person has already arisen in them, but we also must confess that the sinful part his old flesh has not yet ceased to be.
(Format Note: Outline & some base commentary from MacArthur, J. F. (1991, 1994). Romans. MacArthur New Testament commentary. Chicago: Moody Press.)
