Conflict with the continuing presence of indwelling sin
Context: After explaining how the gospel is God’s power to remove the guilt of sin (Ro 1-4) and the dominion of sin over us (Ro 5-6), Paul now describes the struggle of believers with the presence of indwelling sin that continues until the redemption of our body by its future glorification in the resurrection (Ro 7-8).
Warm-up: What are some of the things you really look forward to still experience within your lifetime?
Read: Romans 7
1) vv1-4: How does the marriage illustration explain what it means to be ‘released from the law’?
- vv1-2: How can a law be ‘binding’ or ‘not binding’ on someone?
- Which law did Paul have in mind here: Ceremonial laws such as circumcision, or the ‘moral law’ summed up in the ten commandments? [Compare v7 with Ex 20:17]
- What happens to the law when Christians are removed from its jurisdiction? cf Mt 5:16-17; 1Tim 1:8-11
- v3: Why can no one (including Gentiles) be released from God’s law and its jurisdiction except by saving faith in Jesus? cf Ro 2:14-16
- v4, “Likewise, you also have died to the law…”: How so?
- Why is it essential for believers to learn from our baptism this foundational doctrine and what it means that whoever is in Christ has ‘died to the law’? =>
2) vv5-6: What makes the ‘new way of the Spirit’ a new way? What distinguishes the new from the old way? cf Jn 1:17; 8:11; Lk 7:44-46
- Why is the ‘old way’ called a way of the ‘written code’ (v6)?
- How does this old way hold people ‘captive’?
- Earlier in Romans, Paul identified sin as a power that reigns sovereign, allowing no one to escape death (Ro 5:12-14, 17, 21; cf 7:13). How does sin also use the law to deceive people (v11)?
- Hint: How did sin use the law to deceive even Israel’s teachers of the law through the law? cf Lk 18:11
3) vv7-13: If the law enslaves rather than freeing anyone, why was it decreed in the first place?
- In v7b, Paul switches to 1st person singular: In Paul’s own personal experience, what did the law do to himself? vv7-10
- v12: How can the law still be holy and good, if it is the knife by which sin kills?
- 2Cor 3:6-7a calls the killing by the 10 commandments a ministry (of death): Why did Paul regard his being killed by the law as a necessary service?
- Read Ps 37:30-31 and Ps 40:8. How could David extol the law (also e.g. in Ps 119), when Paul finds that it enslaves and kills?
- Hint: Of whom did David write that the law is in his heart? Ps 40:7; cf Heb 10:5-7
4) vv14-20: In v14, Paul switched from past to present tense. Why? [He now starts to explain how every believer like himself still (!) struggles with the continued presence of indwelling sin] =>
- Could vv14-25 be a description of Paul’s experience before he became a Christian?
- If so, how do you explain that in v14, Paul change from past to present tense?
- Read Phil 3:4-7. What was truly Paul’s view of the law before his conversion? Did he at that time feel condemned by the law? cf Ro 7:9, Mk 7:8-9
- Why not? Ro 7:11 (past tense, i.e. as a Pharisee, the law deceived him into thinking that he matched up to its demands).
- v14b, How did Paul explain what the expression “…sold under sin” means?
- “…I (gr. ego; i.e. even now as a Christian, I myself) am carnal, sold under sin”: Paul contrasts the spiritual nature of the law to his own carnal nature. Why? =>
- Read Mk 7:21-23 and 1Pet 2:2. Accordingly, what makes the human spirit unspiritual/carnal? [spiritual = pure]
- v20: In what sense does sin still dwell also in believers?
- Do they have a choice in this? Ro 8:20-25 => Why not? cf Mk 10:18; 1Jn 1:8
- “…I (gr. ego; i.e. even now as a Christian, I myself) am carnal, sold under sin”: Paul contrasts the spiritual nature of the law to his own carnal nature. Why? =>
- vv15-20: Why did Paul call himself carnal despite his Christian desire to comply with God’s law, v15?
- Read 1Cor 15:50 => Why can the flesh (even of Christians!) not inherit the kingdom of God? Ro 7:18; cf Mk 7:21-23 =>
- What is the gospel’s solution of this problem? 1Cor 15:52-53
- v20 concludes that “…so it is no longer I who do it…” (repeating v17): Why did Paul distinguish between indwelling sin and himself?
- Hint: Why did he add “no longer” (gr. ouketi)? [ouketi conveys that although once it was he himself, now no more [cf v17: Now (gr. nuni, emphasis is on presently)]
- How could Paul squarely blame sin, and how does that doctrine compare to the ideas of secular writers?
5) vv21-23: Until resurrection day, sin continues to indwell believers, thereby creating an inevitable inner conflict. Who are the parties that permanently war against each other? [A law in our members against a law of the mind, v23]
- v21: What is the special danger in wanting to do good?
- How close is such evil, really, and why does it matter to know that this is a universal, law-like truth? v23 [Since believers carry indwelling sin within themselves at all times, they must always remain vigilant and never turn a blind eye on this ‘Trojan horse’.]
- How can this law be discovered empirically?
- vv22-23: How did Paul define what he meant by the ‘law of the mind‘? [v25: the law of God, written on the heart of all men, both Jews and Gentiles, Ro 1)
- Paul contrasted this ‘law of the mind’ to another ‘law (of sin)’ dwelling in his members. What could this ‘law of sin’ be?
- Paul didn’t know about DNA, and that humans share most of it with animals, and that by nature, the body and its instincts are controlled by its genes. Why is it helpful to realize that the Bible and modern neuroscience agree on that?
- In what sense did the law in Paul’s members still make him a captive, even as a Christian? [No one can put off this body]
6) vv24-25: Also other ancient writers described how man is divided, with a moral sense of duty being in conflict with selfish desires. Did Paul’s perspective as a Christian add anything to that?
- What hope of deliverance from the presence of sin is offered by the gospel, if any?
- Did Paul resign and give in to serve both God and sin? Why not?
- What difference does it make to see yourself (your true identity as a believer) as distinct from your ‘flesh’?
- What could be the difference between serving sin versus serving the law of sin (with my flesh)? [Illustration: Submitting e.g. to the law of gravity does not mean that we must jump from every precipice]
- v25: Why did Paul at this point give thanks to God? What for?
- Did he thank for a past or for a future deliverance?
7) Personal & application
- Do you agree that sin deceives people through the law to think of themselves as good? Why or why not?
- Do you recognize any of this dynamic at work in your own heart, and if so, how?
- What should Christians think of themselves: That they are good? Or that they are bad?
- What do you make of Paul’s statement: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh”, v18?
- Do you distinguish between any of your actions as being actions of (your) ‘flesh’ as Paul did? Why or why not?
- If so, how does that change anything?
- How can you make it a habit to thank God even for the future aspect of salvation (the redemption of the body), through Christ?
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