ROMANS 7. Salvation Is Like a 3-Stage Rocket. the First Stage Is Justification: We Are Saved from the Penalty of Sin

Home , Romans 7

WHY DO I KEEP FALLING? ROMANS 7. Salvation is like a 3-stage rocket. The first stage is justification: we are saved from the penalty of sin. The second stage is sanctification: we are being saved from the power of sin. The third stage is glorification: we will be saved from the presence of sin. As believers, we are “in process” of becoming more and more like Jesus. Romans 6 taught us that we now have the freedom and the authority to say to the “old man” – You no longer own me! To the “new man,” the Spirit living within, we can say – I am your servant. We have a choice everyday as to who we will serve. Technically, this is called the doctrine of “progressive sanctification.” God is progressively cleansing us, or freeing us from the power of sin. Sanctification begins the moment one receives Christ as Savior. It continues throughout one’s entire earthly life as a follower of Christ. It ends the moment Jesus takes us home to be with Him. The reality is that the process of sanctification is never a neat, straight line in an upward direction. There are ups and downs; there are some days that are better than other days. There are times when we feel like we are having tremendous victory over the old man, the old sin nature. There are other times when we feel defeated, knocked down, enslaved to the old patterns and sins. Romans chapter 7 is about that struggle. It is about a forgiven man trying to live a godly life. Paul, the great apostle, struggled just like everyone else. You will notice that in the second half of this chapter, Paul speaks in the first person, “I.” This is a highly autobiographical section giving us great insight into this man of God. Every believer should be encouraged by this chapter. Christians aren’t perfect; they’re in process. Before Paul gets into his own personal struggle with sin, he wants us to know about another “death” that has taken place in the life of a Christian. In chapter 6 he taught us that we were dead to the mastery of sin in our lives. Sin has no real authority over us. We march to the voice of a new master. Now, in chapter 7, he teaches us that we are also dead to the power of the Law. Why does he deal with our “death to the Law” here? Because he wants us to know that trying harder and harder to obey a Law code is not the way to gain victory over sin.

DEAD TO THE LAW. ROMANS 7:1-6. Now, dear brothers and sisters - you who are familiar with the law - don’t you know that the law applies only while a person is living? For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries. So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

Catch these summary lines from the above: “You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ.” “Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.” That last line is really a good summary of Romans chapters 7 and 8. There are two ways to seek to be a godly person (to pursue sanctification). The first way, the old way, is to take God’s Law and try to obey it. The second way, the new way, is to let God come and live inside of you and cooperate with God to produce a godly life from the inside out. What Paul is saying is that the old way of the Law has been superseded by the new way of the Spirit. Remember, Jewish teachers opposing Paul (the Judaizers) were going around telling new believers that to really be complete they needed to submit to all of the Old Testament laws, rituals, regulations and so forth. This, they taught, was the only way to achieve true righteousness: try hard to obey a big rule book. Paul is saying that God is sanctifying us in a whole new way - from the inside out - through the indwelling power of His Spirit. It is not a matter of having an external rulebook guiding us; rather, it is a matter of having the Lawgiver Himself, the Holy Spirit, living inside of us. We have God’s laws written on the tablet of our hearts (see 2Corinthians 3:3). This was the “new heart” that was promised long ago through the prophet Ezekiel: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:25-27). Note that last line: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.” This is the essence of the Christian doctrine of sanctification. It is something God is doing inside of us, through His Spirit, rather than us having some sort of book of rules that we are trying to conform to. This also explains why it is so important for a Christian to learn much about the Holy Spirit and the concept of walking in the Spirit. The key to living a victorious Christian life is learning to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 5 deals specifically with this concept, along with Romans 8.) Now this whole idea that Christians have “died to the Law” brings up an objection from people who have high respect for the Law (especially Jews in that day who had the utmost respect for the Mosaic Law). The objection goes like this: “Paul, are you saying that the Law is somehow flawed since it cannot bring about true sanctification? Are you saying there is something inherently wrong with God’s Law?” Paul’s answer follows. The problem is not with God’s Law; the problem is . . . . “I.”

THE CULPRIT IS MY SIN NATURE, NOT GOD’S LAW. ROMANS 7:7-13. Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.” But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to

bring life, brought spiritual death instead. Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good. But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes. God’s Law is a good thing, even if it brought about a bad result. The problem is with me, with my sin nature, not with God’s Law. The Law ended up being something like a mirror reflecting my sin; but the problem is not with the mirror, it’s with me. Time for an Austin Healey example. I am driving along a country road in my 63 Healey, top down, wind blowing my hair off. I’m going 70 mph and having the time of my life listening to the Ford V8 purr beneath the Healey bonnet while 70s music blasts out of 8 speakers. Yes, the car is basically a big engine linked to a big speaker system. Suddenly, the Sony Navigation System blinks red in the corner where my speed is being tracked. The System knows 1) the speed limit on the road I’m on, and 2) my speed in the Healey. Sometimes I wish it only knew the latter. The blinking red tells me I’m more that 5 mph over the limit on that particular road. Can I get mad at the Navigation System? At the satellite tracking me? At the guy who designed the Sony unit? At the blinking red light? Not really. It’s just doing the job it was designed to do: Showing me the truth about me. It’s just a mirror showing me what’s really happening. My right foot is the problem; not the Navigation System. God’s Law is not a bad thing; but it does raise some bad things to the surface. Sin comes to the light when God’s Law gets close to my sin. God’s Law shows me where I am going wrong. So, you’re saying the trouble is . . . ME? Exactly. The problem is not with God’s Law; the problem is with my sin nature. Follow Paul here in this all-too-honest section.

THE WAY INSIDE OF ME. ROMANS 7:14-25. So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Yes, the trouble is inside of ME. I have an old sin nature living inside of me, a sin nature that wants to rise up and control me and make me do the opposite of what the Law says. This passage is Paul, as a Christian, trying to pursue sanctification the old way – through the letter of the Law. He finds himself in a constant battle: the Law says “Don’t covet.” His sin nature says, “Go ahead and covet.” It’s a battle between two opposing forces.

One of the most important principles of interpreting the Bible is to “let Scripture interpret Scripture.” In the case of the above passage, the best commentary is found in Galatians 5, where Paul deals with this exact same issue: the struggle to live a godly life. Here is what Paul wrote to the Galatian church: So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another” (Galatians 5:16-26). There’s a war raging inside of me: flesh (old sin nature) against Spirit (new divine nature). These two forces are pulling me in opposite directions. New boss, meet the old boss! So, what shall I do? Pick up a rulebook and try my best to obey (the way of the Law)? No! I should learn to walk in step with the Holy Spirit. I should daily, moment-by-moment, yield to His controlling influence. I should invite God, living inside of me, to empower me to live His way, to transform me from the inside out. (The book you should read on the Holy Spirit is Charles Stanley’s The Spirit-filled Life.) Back to Romans 7. Paul is struggling; but in the next chapter he will deal with the Holy Spirit’s power to give us the victory. The key to sanctification is walking in the power of the Spirit, NOT walking in the power of the flesh. But notice how he concludes chapter 7 . . . with a cry for help. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. The answer to my need for forgiveness of sin is Jesus. The answer to my need for power over sin is Jesus. Jesus, by His death, gives me forgiveness. Jesus, by His resurrection, gives me new life and power for living. The crucified Lord says: Your sin debt is paid. The risen Lord says: I’m coming to do life with you. How does the risen Christ come to do life with me? Through the person and work of the Holy Spirit. That’s why the Holy Spirit is the main subject in the first half of the next chapter. One final thought about Romans chapter 7. When I feel defeated, I often turn to the last half of Romans chapter 7 for a bit of comfort. It is good to know that the battle is normal

and that some days I’ll get knocked down. Hearing of Paul’s struggle encourages me that it is O.K. to feel far from perfect. It is normal to feel like you are in a process of becoming the kind of person God wants you to be. But when I read chapter 7 for comfort, I like to recall the message of chapter 6 (I am no longer a slave to the old man), and to let my eyes drift into the first few lines of chapter 8 (There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!) The cry of chapter 7 is: “Wretched man that I am.” The replies of chapter 8 are: “No condemnation” (v.1) and “no separation” (vv.37-39). Chapter 7 gives us the reality of our struggle against sin. Chapter 8 gives us hope and the assurance that God will never give up on us. Someone once said: A Christian should never be down. He should either be up, or getting up! I like that. I will get knocked down by the old sin nature. But I can get back up because the love of God for me is deep and sure . . . and the power of God within me is strong and pure.