THE WRETCHED MAN AND THE WARRING LAW

The seventh chapter of Romans has been a favorite battleground of theologians and a subject of widely different interpretations. Its general purpose is plain. In the early part of the Epistle the great apostle has shown the insufficiency of law to justify; but we can be justified by faith in Christ. And "much more," the ruin of the race of Adam can be repaired by Christ. We can be sanctified (chapter 5). In the sixth chapter he shows that it is both our privilege and our duty to be sanctified. Provision has been made for it by the atonement of Christ, and "the sin" in us so detrimental and dangerous, and so fatal in its end, that we ought by all means to get rid of it. Sanctification or death!

In this seventh chapter he shows that we never can get sanctified by law. Law was incapable of justifying a race of sinners: it equally fails everywhere in producing peace and sanctification in any life. And the fault is not in the law. It is holy and just and spiritual: it sharply condemns in us everything unlike God. Therefore it arouses carnality in us to activity, but cannot free us from the power and presence of "the sin." (So interpret Barnes, Whedon, Clarke, and Godet on 7:7-25.)

Chapter. 7:16. The apostle shows that the Christian, with the experience depicted in the sixth chapter, is emancipated from servility to law. By his new life in the Redeemer he walks in the paths of holiness under no compulsion of law, but spontaneously and of his own free will. As the deceased husband was physically dead to the wife, so the widow was legally dead to the husband: that is, she was emancipated from all subjection to him or relation to him. Similarly, by the apostle's varied and flexible use of the word dead he teaches that we, in our effort to be sanctified and live a holy life, are emancipated from the law and are married to Christ, a new Husband, by relation with whom we are to bear the fruit of holiness (verse 4). We never could bear such fruit through marriage with law: for (verse 5) it only excited all the propensities to sin which worked in all our members to secure gratification. This rebellious indulgence of propensities "brought forth fruit unto death." This was our experience when "in the flesh" (sarx), the unregenerate state. But now (verse 6) we are dead to the law -- delivered from it as a means of holiness, and live with the new Husband, Christ, in a "newness of spirit."

Then comes the remarkable, much-debated passage, in which Paul defends the law but shows its powerlessness by relating his experience (verses 7-25).

Some of the conflicting views have been that:

(1) The rest of this chapter is the picture of an unregenerate man. So the early fathers taught, and Augustine prior to his controversy with the Pelagians.

(2) It is a picture of a regenerate man's experience -- Augustine's later view, Jerome, Luther, and Calvin, etc. This view is untenable, for

(a) It opposes all the Bible descriptions of a Christian. In no part of God's Word is a child of God described as a poor carnal slave, "sold under sin."

(b) It would make the gospel as great a failure as the law to redeem a soul.

(3) Some divide the passage, and hold that verses 7-13 treat of the unregenerate experience, and verses 14-25 describe the regenerate experience. So Barnes and Philippi. But this is open to the same objections as the second view.

(4) Hodge and some others hold that "there is not an expression from the beginning to the end of section verses 14-25 which the holiest man may not and must not adopt." In other words, "it is St. Paul at his best." This view is monstrous and utterly untenable, for,

(a) The seventh chapter is in sharp contrast with the sixth and eighth.

(b) It contradicts all St. Paul has said about his Christian experience in his epistles. In 1 Cor. 2:16 he had "the the sin of Christ." In 1 Cor. 2:12 he gloried that "in holiness and sincerity of God he behaved himself." In 1 Thess. 2:10 he called others and "God also to witness how holily and righteously and unblamably" he had behaved, and so on. There is no comfort in this passage for those who want to reject holiness.

(5) Others hold that here Paul introduces himself as the personification of a legal Jew, who seeks sincerely to fulfill the law without ever being successful in satisfying his conscience.

(6) A few restrict the application of the passage to the apostle's own person. Of these Godet seems to be the clearest and soundest of all: "The truth is, the whole is related about himself, but with the conviction that his experience will infallibly be that of every Israelite and of every man who will seriously use the moral law or Mosaic law as a means of sanctification." ... "Paul speaks about the unregenerate man, without concerning himself with the question how far the unregenerate heart (depravity) ... still remains in the regenerate believer. He describes man as he is by nature, man as he knew him ... Here is the permanent essence of human nature since the Fall, outside the action of faith. Thus is explained the use of the present tense, without our saying that Paul describes his present state." ... "He recalls with wonderful vividness his impressions of former days" ... "when as a natural man, and consequently also a legal Jew, he was struggling with the sin in his own strength, without other aid than the law, and consequently overcome by the evil instinct, the flesh. What he describes then is the law grappling with the evil nature, where these two adversaries encounter one another without the grace of the gospel." ... "He regards himself as the normal example of what must happen to every man who, in ignorance of Christ, or apart from Him, will take the law in earnest."

Let us now consider the two sections separately.

Verses 7-13. What? "Is the law sin?" No, indeed. The trouble was not in the law, but in me. "Howbeit, I had not known the sin" which was in me, except the law had forbidden indulgence, and aroused it. So Ovid said: "The strongest propensity is excited toward that which is prohibited." And again he said: "Vice is provoked by every strong restraint."

Verse 8. "the sin, taking occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting."

Verse 9. "And I was alive apart from the law once; but when the commandment came the sin revived and I died." Meyer says: "Paul means his life of childlike innocence." Likewise Godet comments beautifully: "It refers here to the state of a young and pious Israelitish child, trained in the knowledge and love of Jehovah, tasting by faith in the promises of His Word the blessings of the covenant, awakening and going to sleep in the arms of the God of his fathers. But from the age of twelve young Israelites were subjected to legal institutes and became sons of the law. This brought the crisis to the life of the young Saul. When he found himself called to apply the law to his conduct he was not slow to discover sin within him, for in the depths of his heart he found lust; and not only did the law unveil this evil principle to him, but it intensified its power. The torrent bubbled and boiled on meeting with the obstacle that came in its way." Saul rebelled and "died" morally. Who killed him? Not the law; but the law waked up the sin, personified here as a murderer, and it slew him. He sinned by yielding to the evil propensity, and the internal divorce between God and him was consummated (verses 10 and 11). "The holy commandment, then, instead of leading me to peace and life, resulted in death: for the sin, finding occasion, beguiled me and slew me." His corrupt and rebellious propensities, excited by the law, rushed him on into aggravated transgression.

Verse 12. "So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." But the indwelling sin is the murderer, without which God's law would be benign and glorious.

Verse 13. "But the sin that it might be shown ..... and became exceeding sinful." God causes death to follow sin, in order to unfold the accursedness of the sin. Some make light of it, but "the intrinsic, immutable eternal execrableness of the sin principle is a lesson in theology which God is continually pressing upon the attention of men."

Calvin well says, "It was proper that the enormity of the sin should be revealed by the law; because unless it should break forth by some dreadful and enormous excess, it would not be known to be sin. This excess exhibits itself the more violently, while it turns life into death."

Likewise Barnes says. "The sentiment of the whole is, that the tendency of the law is to excite the dormant sin of the bosom into active existence, and to reveal its true nature." It is desirable that sin should be thus seen, because

(1) Man should be acquainted with his true character. He should not deceive himself.

(2) Because it is one part of God's plan to develop the secret feelings of the heart, and to show all creatures what they are.

(3 Because only by knowing this will the sinner be induced to take a remedy and strive to be saved. God often thus suffers men to plunge into sin, to act out their nature, that they may see themselves and be alarmed at their own character.

Now, this passage teaches that the law of God effectually accomplishes this, but it can go no farther. It is not adapted to sanctify the soul. It would logically follow that the law should be faithfully preached. It is the grand instrument in the hands of a faithful minister to alarm and awaken sinners, and make them cry out for God.

It further follows that all efforts to sanctify yourself -- that is, to get rid of indwelling sin by labored efforts to keep the law of God -- are utterly vain. Sanctification was never reached in that way. It is an instantaneous work of God, obtained by faith.

Chapter 7:14-25. Dr. Hodge argues that the change of the tenses from past to present in this section indicates that it was Paul's experience at the time of writing, and a picture of any Christian's experience. He thinks that the sentiments expressed in verses 17, 18, 22, and 25 are too exalted for any unrenewed man.

Barnes reaches the same conclusion with regard to the tenses, and that it agrees with the design of Paul's argument, which is to show that the law cannot sanctify.

Dr. Matthew Riddle doubts if the change of tenses can signify so much. He argues that "not until verse 25 is there a distinct Christian utterance, while chapter 8 sounds like a new song of triumph." Dr. Riddle and Lange think "the apostle is not describing a quiescent state, but the process in which man is driven from the law to Christ and an unregenerate person becomes regenerate."

So Olshausen: "The state under the law cannot coexist with regeneration, and without question, therefore, as chapter 7:24 is to express the awakened need of redemption and verse 25 the experience of redemption itself, verses 14-24 are to be referred to a position before regeneration, and to be understood as a description of the conflict within an awakened person."

Dr. Clarke thinks that "the theory that this is the experience of all Christians has most pitifully and most shamefully, not only lowered the standard of Christianity, but destroyed its influence and disgraced its character. It would demonstrate the insufficiency of the gospel as well as the law."

So thinks Dr. Daniel Steele and Whedon.

John Fletcher says: "St. Paul no more professes himself actually a carnal man in Rom. 7:14 than he professes himself a liar in Rom. 3:7, or James professed to be a curser in James 3:9. It is the figure hypotyposis, so-called in rhetoric, by which writers use the present tense to relate things past or to come, to make narration more lively. It is St. Paul's past in the present tense."

We may admit that something like this struggle with indwelling sin, which St. Paul describes, may and does take place in the breasts of Christians who are not sanctified. But Lange "guards against the thought that this is a distinctively Christian experience. It is the most hopeful state of the unregenerate man; the least desirable state of the regenerate man." It could not be the apostle's best, nor the best possible for any Christian. Whoever advocates such a view, takes refuge behind it to avoid the will of God which is to be sanctified (1 Thess. 4:3).

Godet very truly argues that St. Paul is not here depicting his Christian experience:

(a) For his conversion made a tremendous and radical change in his life which is not even hinted at in the entire passage, and which should have been described between verses 13 and 14;

(b) Because the Holy Spirit, who plays so great a part in a Christian's experience, is not named in the whole section, nor even Jesus himself, whom the apostle so constantly glorified. The contrast between this and the eighth chapter is most striking in this respect.

Godet quotes approvingly M. Bonnet: "The apostle is speaking here neither of the natural man in his state of voluntary ignorance and sin, nor of the child of God, born anew, set free by grace, and animated by the Spirit of Christ; but of the man whose conscience awakened by the law, has entered sincerely, with fear and trembling, but still in his own strength, into the desperate struggle against evil." Godet merely adds: "In our actual circumstances the law which thus awakens the conscience and summons it to the struggle against sin, is the law in the form of the gospel, and of the example of Jesus Christ, taken apart from justification in Him and sanctification by Him."

After wading through the wilderness of conflicting opinions in many commentaries, we accept the interpretation of Godet: "The apostle explains what the intervention of the law produced in his own life (verses 7-13), and the state in which, despite his sincere and persevering efforts, it left him (verses 14-23) to issue in that desperate cry of distress in which this state of continual defeats finally expresses itself: Who shall deliver me? Of this liberator he does not know the name at the time when he utters the cry (a fact which proves that he is not yet in the faith); but he anticipates, he hopes for, he appeals to Him without knowing Him. And heaven gives him the answer. Chapter 8 contains this answer: 'The Spirit of Christ hath set me free' (verse 2). He it is that works in me all that the law demanded, without giving me the power to do it (verse 4).

"The passage falls into three cycles, each of which closes with a sort of refrain. It is like a dirge; the most sorrowful elegy that ever proceeded from a human heart. The first cycle embraces verses 14-17. The second, which begins and ends in almost the same way as the first, is contained in verses 18-20. The third differs from the first two in form, but is identical with them in substance; it is contained in verses 21-23, and its conclusion in verses 24, 25 is at the same time that of the whole passage ... The repetition of the same thoughts and expressions is, as it were, the echo of the desperate repetition of the same experiences in that legal state wherein man can only shake his chains without succeeding in breaking them. Powerless he writhes to and fro in the prison in which sin and the law have confined him, and in the end can only utter that cry of distress whereby, having exhausted his force for the struggle, he appeals, without knowing Him, to the Deliverer.'

First Cycle

"For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under the sin. For that which I do, I know not: For what I would, that do I practise; but what I hate, that I do. But if what I would not, that I do, I consent unto the law that it is good. So now it is no more I that do it, but the sin which dwelleth in me."

I acknowledge the goodness of the law, but I am a captive. This is not regeneration. The lowest regenerated state has the sin rebellious within, but the higher life has carnality underfoot. The indwelling sin may gain many masteries, but it never holds permanent dominion over the regenerate man, for then he would cease to be regenerate. But this man is even worse still; he is "sold under the sin," not only the subject, but the slave of carnality. And it is not the base I, the lower self, but the higher I that utters this awful plaint." Says Whedon, "Reducing the hyperbole as much as we reasonably can, it is absolutely inadmissible to predicate this in any case of a regenerate man."

"I am carnal." The best reading here is sarkinos, meaning, not carnal in action but carnal "in nature." Paul felt a mighty inclination to seek his own gratification in everything. This slave works out the will of his master, follows the blind instincts of corrupted nature which drags him along into evil, and when he sees the result, he abhors it.

Here begins the battle of the I's. It is the corrupt I of carnality and indwelling sin asserting its law in the members, and overwhelming the I of conscience, awakened by the Spirit. What I wickedly do, I consciously allow not. He has in him a tyrant who forces him to act in opposition to his better wishes. What humiliation! What misery!

Second Cycle (verses 18-20)

"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not. For the good which I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I practice. But if what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that do it but the sin which dwelleth in me."

"In me, that is in my flesh," means "in the lower carnal self" (Alford). "In me so far at least as my person is carnal" (Godet). "He therefore gives it to be understood that there is something in him besides the flesh, even the knowledge and admiration of goodness. There is good in the ego, but in the understanding only, not in the flesh which gives the active impulse."

Sarx (flesh) here, according to Lange, means not merely the body or the lusts of the body, but, also Fairchild says, "the aggregate of the desires and passions of which the bodily appetites are only the most conspicuous." "The finite tendency in both its immaterial and sensuous character."

The sense of this passage, then, is that the sin has taken possession of the sensibilities and made them, as Lange says, "a fountain of wicked action." The better self, the illuminated judgment and conscience, protests against the commission of sin; but the indwelling tyrant, with ceaseless diligence and tireless activity, rushes me on into evil conduct. It is no more I, the better ego, that do it, but an overmastering I of "the sin that dwelleth in me." I am moved to do that which in conscience I would not do.

Third Cycle (verses 21-25)

"I find then the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is present. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my the sin, and bringing me into captivity under the law of the sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself with the the sin serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."

We have the word "law" in this passage five times. In all but the second, where it refers to moral law, it means "the governing principle" (Godet), "the uniform tendency" (Daniel Steele), "regular process, continuous action" (Alexander Maclaren).

"I delight in the law of God after the inward man." That is, I regard it with complacency, and admire its precepts, "in the inmost chamber of my being." "The inward man" here is the nous of verses 23 and 25, the understanding and moral consciousness, which approves virtue in others. The ordinary conscience even of the natural man, as moral philosophers admit, delights in exhibitions of right and justice.

Many Commentators insist that this is a picture of regeneration, because the natural man cannot have such exalted sentiments. But this is clearly a mistaken notion which has quite led them astray in interpretation. Multitudes applaud the virtues in poetic strains and exalted eloquence who are themselves anything but virtuous.

God declared that the Israelites "seek me daily and delight to know my ways" (Isa. 53:2), when at that very time He was threatening them with destruction for their sins. Their descendants glorified the law while they were plotting to kill Jesus. Paul himself at one time "delighted in the law of God" while he was persecuting Christians to death.

Even the heathen have delighted in the moral law while practicing sin. Ovid wrote:

"My reason this, my passion that persuades,
I see the right, and I approve it, too;
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue."

Epictetus wrote: "He who sins does not will sin, but wishes to walk uprightly: yet it is manifest that what he wills, he doth not; and what he wills not, he doth." Euripides wrote: "Passion, however, is more powerful than my reason; which is the cause of the greatest evils to mortal man." It would not be difficult to name English poets who wrote beautiful Christian sentiments while their lives were unreportable. When Hodge says that an unregenerate man cannot delight in the law of God, the experience of millions contradicts his assertion. This mental delight in the law of God may be only the intellectual ideal of morality, contemplated by wicked men with admiration, but never practiced. The uniform tendency of the depraved nature (v. 23) is to override the constant sentiments and protests of the inner man and bring the poor victim into the most degrading captivity to the uniform tendency to sin and death.

After repeated struggles and endless defeats, despairing of self-betterment, the poor soul at last cries out, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Calvin comments thus: "He teaches us to ask for death as the only remedy of evil." Godet replies: "It is impossible to mistake the meaning more completely." It is not death but Christ who brings deliverance. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

"So then I myself with the the sin serve the law of God: but with the flesh the law of sin." Steele: "I myself alone, on the plane of nature, without the aid of Christ, can do no better than render a dual service, with the the sin serving the law of God, by my admiration of its excellence, but with the flesh the law of sin, by such a surrender as carries my guilty personality with it." This is the summing up of the discord with the struggling sinner in his convicted law state. But God sent His Son and the Holy Spirit to give him the peace of justification and the cleansing of sanctification from the sin which made him all his trouble. This "double cure" "bestows a harmony divine, and this harmony peals forth in paean in the opening of the next chapter."