Sermon preached by Rev. Stephen Nichols Sun 7 Dec 2014 on Romans 7:7–25 .
Here's the link to the All Souls Langham Place Audio
Struggling not to sin is one of my daily, sometimes hourly, struggles. Envy, anger, pride, list... and more are too often my regular companions.
While the Bible makes it clear that faith in Jesus and repentance always gets God's forgiveness [If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness John1 8-10], I'm often challenged with wonder if repeatedly comitting the same sin means that my sorry prayer to God and promise to try and change are empty words. And God sees this and therefore will not forgive.
I might take comfort in John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. But, I'm still worried, dreading that when my earthly life ends I'll hear Jesus repeat Mathew 7 21-23 ‘I never knew you; depart from me.'
This sermon shows my worries put me in good company. John Bunyon, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, felt the same until he had a revelation that his righteousness before God was in heaven, with Jesus and nothing, good nor bad, that he did could affect that. St Paul provides a similar re-assurance in Romans 8 verse 1. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Read or listen to the sermon which provides an excellent presentation of re-assurance for everyone fearing the consequences of repeated sins. And also the words of Stephen Nicholls closing prayer which ask for help to fight the temptation to repeat our sins.
Here's my transcript...
Well, I hope you’re not squeamish here this morning because in a moment we are going to observe an autopsy.
Medical students will be rubbing their hands in anticipation others of us will be less enthusiastic perhaps. But the pathologist is the apostle Paul and on the slab before him a 1st century Jew born in modern day Turkey. Saul of Tarsus is his name, Paul’s old self. For the first time in history the pathologist is also the subject.
Well, we're in Paul's letter to the Romans, the last of our series as we think about gospel consequences. Paul writes to a mixture of Gentile and Jewish Christians to establish them in the international gospel. And the reason he wants to teach this international gospel to the church in Rome is that he wants the church in Rome to help him on his international mission - his mission to Spain. So, he sets it out.
The worldwide gospel, declares that Jews and gentiles alike are by nature under God's wrath. And Jews and Gentiles alike are by grace declared righteous by faith in Jesus Christ. There's one gospel for the whole world for Jews and Gentiles. A gospel that the law of Moses testified to.
But from what Paul has said so far about the law of Moses, there may have been Jewish Christians in Rome who thought that he had a negative view of God's law.
So, in Romans Chapter 5 verse 20, Paul had said “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase”. In Chapter 6 verse 14, he said “Sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under law but under grace”. And in Chapter 7 verse five, he says “For when we were in the realm of the flesh.The sinful passions, aroused by the law were at work in us so that we bore fruit for death”. Are Jewish Christians now to think of the law as a bad thing? Before Paul goes on in his letter, he must anticipate and answer the objections. So, in Chapter 7 he addresses Jewish Christians directly and Gentile Christians indirectly.
We saw last week, in Romans Chapter 7 verses one to six, that when the Jew died with Christ he was released from the authority of the written Law. The power of the Law over him was broken because his old humanity was killed at the Cross and it was replaced with a new humanity in the resurrection.
The Jewish Christian now has a new relationship with the Law. The Law no longer stands against him but for him. The law is no longer external to him but internal, written on his heart by the Holy Spirit. The law no longer bears fruit for death as it once did before he knew Christ. Now in Christ the law bears fruit to God.
So where does it leave the law? Is the law a bad thing? Verse 7 “What shall we say then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not,” Paul says. “Nevertheless I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the Law. The Law revealed my sin" Paul says to fellow Jewish Christians. It was the scalpel that exposed the decay inside me. And here Paul puts on the apron and prepares for the autopsy. He looks back, verse 9. “Once he says I was alive apart from the law but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.'
I found that the very command that was intended to bring life actually brought death. Saul of Tarsus, as he once was, was brought up with the Law, circumcised on the eighth day, the son of a Pharisee. At no time did he live in a sense without the Law but at one time he says I lived in blissful ignorance of the Law's demands.
There was a time when Paul did not submit to the law's true purpose of exposing his sin and leading him to faith in Christ. Just the opposite.
There was a time he said when I thought I could fulfil the demands of the law myself.
He was alive, not in the sense of spiritually alive or converted, but alive in the sense that he hadn't felt yet the conviction of the Law. He hadn't yet realised that his failure to obey the Law brought him under the sentence of death. He was like the young ruler in Luke Chapter 18 who came to Jesus and said of God's commandments, “All these I've kept since I was a boy.”
Paul himself summarised it in Philippians Chapter 3 verse six. “As for legalistic righteousness, I was faultless,” he said. “At one time I was alive”.
You shall not covet. The commandment which snares us all!
But unknown to him he was the carrier of a fatal disease and one commandment in particular laid his condition bare. Verse 7. He says “I would not have known what coveting was if the law had not said you shall not covet. But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting.”
“You shall not covet. That was the commandment. Of all the 10 commandments, it was that one that convicted Paul so deeply.
You see it is easy to deceive ourselves with the others. It's easy to think that we're keeping the commandments if we haven't broken them in practice, even though Jesus shows us that the commands go beyond mere outward actions. But the command not to covet, it is aimed directly at our hearts.
The legalist thinks he's kept the ten commandments if he doesn't steal with his hands or lie with his tongue or kill with his fists. The legalist can deceive himself into thinking that God is impressed by mere outward morality. But the command not to covet slices the thin moral veneer off the legalist's life. It lays bare his heart. It goes below the surface. It exposes our desires.
Once ‘thou shall not covet’ came home to Paul, really came home to his heart, it showed him his sin. It killed off the happy sinner. It killed the complacent Pharisee who thanked God that he wasn't like other men. He boasted in his pedigree, his accomplishments. Who had advanced in his Judaism beyond so many of his age. When the commandment really came home to his heart with conviction, it showed him that he was a coveter and a law breaker just like everybody else.
At one time Paul thought that in the courts of God's justice he was sitting up in the public gallery. Suddenly he found himself sitting in the dock.
But not only did the commandment show Paul that he was a sinner, sin saw that commandment as an opportunity.
Don't preach morality, preach Jesus!
Sometimes people say the job of the church is to preach morality, to teach people how to behave. I was helping at a school mission recently when one of the teachers told me that rather than telling people about Jesus, as a Christian minister I ought to be telling the young people in her sixth form how they should live.
Well Paul tells us that in the context of humanity enslaved to sin, the law can only multiply sin. The effect of preaching morality is it produces even more immorality. Society is bad enough without someone inciting people to even more wickedness.
The commandment not to covet came home to Paul and sin in him found that commandment to be a very fertile ground. It produced in him every kind of coveting. Desires Paul didn't even know himself capable of suddenly exploded all around him like a fatal disease that had lain dormant all his life. Sin found in the commandment and the perfect conditions to activate itself. It sprang to life and put him to death.
Paul once saw himself as a visitor to the hospital. Suddenly found himself admitted as a patient.
“Is the law sinful?” Paul asks. “No!” verse 12 “The Law is holy and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. The Law does a very good job. It reveals sin. It can't save us but it's like the scalpel in the surgeon's hand, it exposes what's inside us, it reveals our sin.
Well, Paul imagines another objection. If the law is not sinful but good as you say, how is it, it condemned me to hell? Verse 13, “Did that which is good then become death to me?” Once again, “By no means!”
Nevertheless in order that sin might be recognised as sin, it used what was good to bring about my death so that through the commandments sin might become utterly sinful. The goodness of the law showed the badness of sin. Sin sees the law as an opportunity to express itself. The fact that sin can use something which is good and holy and righteous to bring about my death shows just how sinful sin is. The Law is very good at what it does. It can't save, but it exposes my sin.
Well, if in verses 7 to 13 Paul performs an autopsy on his old self, I'm afraid in verses 14 to 25 he takes up the scalpel again, this time to perform a vivisection on himself and his present life. I hope you are not about to eat very soon!
In verse 14 as you look down, the tense changes. No longer does Paul speak about his relationship with the Law in the past, what was once true. He talks about his relationship with the Law in his present life.
The Law stands for the Christian, not against him
What is now true. “The Jewish Christian,” he says, “has a new relationship with the law.” The law no longer stands against him but for him. It's no longer outside him but it's internal, written on his heart by God's spirit. And this is where we Gentiles are let into the conversation, because every Christian Jewish or Gentile, has God's law written on their hearts by his spirit.
As Christians we have new desires. Desires we never had before. A longing to go God's way. To please him. God’s law is written on our heart by his spirit.
Well, these verses that follow are among the most hotly debated in the New Testament. The way Paul describes himself in these verses that follow has caused some Christians to think he's still talking of himself before his conversion.
He says verse 14. “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual. Literally I am carnal. Fleshly, sold as a slave to sin. Sold as a slave to sin. And yet in Romans Chapter 6 verse six he said that “Our old self was crucified with Christ so the body of sin might be done away with so that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”
Here he says we are slaves to sin. In verse 18 he says “I have the desire to do what is good but I cannot carry it out.”
Is that really true of the Christian someone asks? Surely Paul is still describing his experience before his conversion.
Well while we must respect brothers and sisters who hold that view, I'm not persuaded by it myself. It seems there is no contradiction really between what Paul said earlier in his letter and what he is saying now.
In Chapter 6 verse four he says that “When we trusted Christ, we were united with him. When he died, we died. When he rose to new life, we rose to new life.”
We shared in a real death and a real resurrection. While the death of the old humanity at the cross was a real and never to be repeated event, right now it remains incomplete. And here's the source of Paul struggle and it’s the source of your struggle and my struggle as well if you're a Christian.
New humanity and old humanity in perpetual conflict
The victory has been decisively won at the cross but our flesh, our natural self, is still alive and kicking. We have been born again in Christ, but we also remain products of our birth in Adam. Only when our bodies die will the old humanity we were born in to, finally be laid to rest. Only then will the death of our old humanity be fully realised.
The problem is not that we have bodies. The problem is that the redemption has not yet been applied to our bodies. “What a wretched man I am,” Paul groans in verse 24. “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Our hope is not to escape our bodies, our hope is that one day every part of us including our bodies will be redeemed. And our new humanity in Christ will be fully realised and fully present and until then we are members of two humanities. We are monstrous contradictions. We are at war with ourselves in our bodies.
So, Paul speaks as if he were two men. There’s a new Paul and an old Paul, an inner man an outer man. Verse 22, “In my inner being, in my new humanity in Christ, I delight in God's Law. But I see another law at work in me, waging war against the Law of my mind, making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work in me.”
In his mind Paul is now a slave to God's Law but in his flesh he remains a slave to the law of sin.
Well, if you're a Christian, you know this struggle. Deep down, you don't want to sin. God’s law is written on your heart, and you want to live for him but your flesh and my flesh craves the old ways.
Verse 18 “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me that is in my flesh for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do. The evil I do not want to do this I keep on doing. If I do what I do not want to do is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
Two sets of desires are fighting it out within us and until our bodies are laid to rest in the grave, our bodies will remain the battleground. And Paul finds it genuinely perplexing “I do not understand what I do.” But he also knows that this is the authentic experience of the Christian. Only the person who's had God's law written on their heart. Only the person who has been raised with Christ to begin to live the new humanity, can say that they, in inner being, they delight in God's law.
Before we became Christians our old life was characterised by sin. Now sin is out of character. It never disturbed us before to sin against Jesus Christ. Now it disturbs us deeply. Sin characterises what we were in Adam not what we are now in Christ.
You see the sign that I am a Christian is not that I have miraculously stopped sinning but now that I start struggling against sin. Sin grieves me.
Am I really forgiveen?
Well, the danger is that because I'm now aware of my sin in a way I was never aware before, I might begin to wonder if I really am forgiven. Have I really started to live this new life? Other people might tell me that I've changed since I've become a Christian but I don't feel it. If anything, I feel more sinful than I did before.
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
But when I feel like that, I need to lift my eyes off myself and on to Jesus Christ. Because just as the struggle of Romans 7 is true of every Christian and will be until we die, so the truth of Romans Chapter 8 verse one is true of every Christian.
Paul writes “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
I might feel condemned by my sin now but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
You see although we are members of two humanities – the new us and the old us. The inner man and the outer man. The two are not equal. Our fundamental identity is as part of this new humanity in Christ. The old me died with Christ on the cross. The new me rose with Christ from the grave.
My flesh has some catching up to do but I have passed the point of no return. If I trust in Jesus, I am in Christ. My righteous standing before God has nothing to do with the success of my struggle against sin. My righteousness is Jesus Christ and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, however fierce the struggle.
Your righteousness is in heaven
John Bunyon the 17th century preacher and author of Pilgrims Progress was troubled all his life. Deeply troubled by his sin. On occasions he found his mind filled with the most terrible blasphemies. So overwhelming was his sin that many times he doubted if he were really saved at all.
In his autobiography Grace Abounding, he records one episode, one day as he was walking through the countryside. This sentence came into his mind “Your righteousness is in heaven.”
He said “I thought I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand. There was my righteousness. Wherever I was or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me that I lacked his righteousness for it was ever before him. I saw that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better. Nor my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday and today and forever.
“There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” so Paul says. “I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s Law But in my flesh, I’m a slave to the law of sin. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Let's pray together. Our father in heaven, we thank you for the comfort of Romans Chapter 7 that our struggle against sin is evidence that we have been born into this new life in Christ. And we thank you that while we struggle we have this assurance that we are forgiven and righteous and there is no condemnation upon us.
Lord while we know this while we know this struggle and while we know that it is a lifelong struggle, we pray that we might make progress and become more like Christ in our character and our behaviour and we ask this for Jesus sake.