The Problem Of Indwelling Sin.

THE PROBLEM OF INDWELLING SIN.

Romans 7:15-25a.

In the first half of Romans 7:14, Paul speaks in the second person plural: ‘For WE know that the law is spiritual.’ Then, from the second half of the verse, Paul changes to the first person singular, ‘I’ – ‘but I am carnal, sold under (or a slave unto) sin.’ This is probably a rhetorical device, in order to identify with the many people who might recognise themselves in these verses.

ROMANS 7:15. “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I.”

ROMANS 7:16. “If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.” Paul has already established that the law is good: ‘Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good’ (cf. Romans 7:12).

ROMANS 7:17. “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” There is nothing wrong with God’s law, ‘But sin that it may appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful’ (cf. Romans 7:13).

ROMANS 7:18a. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” Romans 7:15-17 are more or less repeated in Romans 7:18-20.

ROMANS 7:18b. “But how to perform that which is good I find not.” How so? Because ‘I am carnal, sold under sin’ (cf. Romans 7:14).

ROMANS 7:19. “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” There is the will do good, just an inability to accomplish it.

ROMANS 7:20. “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” Having consented that the law is good (cf. Romans 7:16b), it is indwelling sin that gets the blame.

ROMANS 7:21. “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” The paradox is, that the “I” who “would do good” finds that evil is present “with me.” The ever present “evil” is nearby, forever seeking to disrupt the best intentions of the speaker.

ROMANS 7:22. “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” At the very centre of his innermost being, this “I” delights in the goodness of God’s law (cf. Romans 7:16b). But there is a war raging within:

ROMANS 7:23. “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” The law of God resides in ‘the inward man’ (cf. Romans 7:22), but the law of sin is at work in the “members” of his body.

The battle rages on – implying that the “I” of the rhetoric has not given up, and continues to ‘delight in the law of God’ (cf. Romans 7:22) in his innermost being.

ROMANS 7:24. “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” This is not a cry of despair, but a cry of faith, stretching towards the Almighty:

ROMANS 7:25a. “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” This a cry of triumph, recognising that the battle has already been won by Jesus.

Yet the problem of indwelling sin is that it is still there at the end of the chapter: ‘So then with the mind I myself serve the law; but with the flesh the law of sin’ (cf. Romans 7:25b).

The triumph is worked out in the next chapter: ‘For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ (Romans 8:3-4).

In the meantime: ‘Ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption – the redemption of our body’ (cf. Romans 8:23).