July 10
I Chronicles 23-24
Psalm 79:1-4
Proverbs 17:18-20
Romans 7
The Problem of Sin
“For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate…. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this dying body? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:15, 18-19, 24-25 HCSB
In Romans 7, Paul deals with the relationship between the law and human sinfulness. He begins by making it clear that those who are in Christ are not bound by the law of Moses. We are also free from our slavery to sin. When we come to faith in Christ we are so closely associated with His death and resurrection that we experience a spiritual death and are resurrected into a new spiritual life. He uses the illustration of marriage to explain this. A woman whose husband has died is no longer obligated to remain faithful to him. She is free to marry another man. Our death with Christ has freed us from any obligation to the law. Paul makes it clear that the law itself is not bad. It is holy and good and reveals to us how sinful we are. We would not recognize that coveting is sinful if the law did not warn us of the dangers of coveting our neighbors’ possessions. He describes how his failed attempts to keep the law convince him of his need to be delivered from sin by faith in Christ.
In verses 13-23, Paul describes the experience of wanting to do what is good and finding himself doing what is sinful instead. Bible scholars disagree about whether Paul is describing himself before he was a Christian, when he was trying desperately to follow the law, or whether he is describing a current experience of trying to do good in his own power as a Christian. I tend to believe that he is describing the ongoing struggle of a believer against sin. The book of Romans centers around the idea that non-Christians are unable to keep the law. The law is not able to make us righteous before God. Christians are freed from the power of sin, but often still find the temptation of sin difficult to overcome. Becoming a Christian gives us the power to overcome sin, but it does not make us sinless. We can have the best intentions to do good and still find it difficult to always live that out in our everyday lives. Paul cries out in frustration that he is a wretched man who needs to be delivered. He recognizes that we can find deliverance only through faith in Jesus.
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