“The Battle” – Romans 7:14-25

There is a war raging on this earth. It’s not war between nations but a war between Satan and God, and the battlefield is God’s people.

The idea of a spiritual warfare is seen in the Bible. Paul referred to it in Ephesians 6 when he wrote that we should put on the full armor of God. One of the more popular hymns of old is “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

The battle is being fought, and it is being fought within you and me. It is not an easy battle to fight. Paul understood that, and he wrote today’s passage to let us know that he understood the frustration of the battle and the assurance of victory.

Background

Romans was written by Paul in anticipation of visiting the church there. He had never been there before, so this letter is the apostle’s statement of faith. Similar to Galatians, Romans is a more detailed declaration of what Paul believed about following Christ.

In today’s passage, Paul returned to the idea he expressed in Romans 3:20: “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” What followed in Romans 7:14-25 is a personal declaration of how the war in our lives is waged. Because it is so personal, there is a question of whether Paul was writing about his life before he knew Christ or after he knew Christ.

Those who believe the apostle was writing about life before knowing Christ point to the inability of the person to overcome temptation. They point to what Paul wrote in Romans 6 (which we will look at in more detail next week), and what he wrote in Chapter 8 and suggest that Paul was describing the struggle and failure of those who have no relationship with God through Christ. It is a good argument, and it may well be the correct belief.

There is another belief that Paul was writing about the struggles and frustrations of a person in fellowship with Christ. This person that is being described is aware of and desires to do God’s will, but seems to fail to do so more often than not. The cry for help in v. 24 is answered in v. 25, and the resolution at the end of v. 25 seems to suggest that Paul is writing about a Christian’s struggle with temptation and sin.

Of the two views, I prefer the view that the passage is dealing with a Christian’s struggle with sin. I believe that every believer who reads these words can relate to them. As we grow in our relationship with Christ, we become more aware of our sinfulness and our failure to do His will.

The Bible teaches that a person consists of three parts: the spirit, the soul and the body. The personality resides within the soul. The soul communicates to the world through the body, and the world communicates to the soul through the body. The soul communicates with God through the spirit, and God communicates with the soul through the spirit. When we sin, our spirit dies. Salvation is God rekindling life within the spirit—we are born again. Just as Jesus was resurrected, so, too, is our spirit resurrected by the power and grace of God. While the spirit is reborn and we are able to communicate once more with God, and while God is working through our spirit to sanctify us, our soul continues to reside in the same body that was always a part of us from our birth. It is important to keep this in mind as we look at what Paul has written in these verses.

As we look at the passage, we need to keep in mind the following truth:

Central Truth: To immerse ourselves in Christ we must contend with the sinful nature.

The battle rages because:

1. Sin lives in us (14-20)

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that I,s in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I want to do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

The tug of war between our desire to do God’s will and the temptation to not do His will begins the moment we come to Christ. Paul has written that it is impossible to come to God through the law, that the law was written to show us what sin is. In our original body, though we are born again, our body still contains the sinful nature that has spent a lifetime rebelling against God. While we are born again in Christ, we still have the element in our body that keeps us from wanting to do God’s will. This is why Paul wrote that he, and we, were sold as slaves to sin. It is this antagonism between the spirit and the body that creates the conflict Paul wrote about.

Each day, as we go about living our lives, we always have the best intentions to do and be what God calls us to do and be. Inevitably, living life gets in the way. We lose our temper; we indulge in that second helping when we are already full from the first helping. Sometimes we sin and don’t even realize it until later. When we realize it, we immediately regret it and feel guilty. It is this guilty feeling that Satan wants us under.

We want to do God’s will, but far too often, we fall woefully short of that will. Paul wrote that the reason we continue to sin is because the sinful nature still resides in our body. Our souls have spent a lifetime communicating with our bodies, with our sinful nature, and only relatively recently have we been born again and find fellowship with the Father through the Son and the Holy Spirit. Our default mode, if you will, is to do what we’ve always done, even if we don’t want to. We fall back into to the old ways of doing things. As Paul put it so well, “As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me” (v. 17).

We need to pause here and realize what Paul was saying. We should not read these verses and find in them an exoneration for our sinful acts. Paul did not write that we are not responsible for our falling for temptation and sinning. In Galatians, he reminded us that one of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control, and Peter wrote throughout his first letter that we are to make our minds to live holy lives and to put away the old self.

So why did Paul write this? God inspired the apostle to write these verses to give us an understanding of what is going on. If Paul struggled with sin in his life, we can find comfort that we are not alone in the struggle. And knowing we are not alone, we also know that there are solutions to our problem, solutions from other brothers and sisters in Christ who have also struggled and continue to struggle.

What we learn from these verses is not that we are failures because we sin, because sin has worked in us for our lifetime, and it will take time for God’s sanctifying work to take effect in us. By reading these verses, we learn that there is a reason for our sinful ways, even if we never want to sin again.

2. The sinful nature against the inner being (21-23)

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

I remember watching a cartoon from way back when, where the main character is given a choice of doing something good. The animators then drew an angel on one shoulder and a devil-like character on the other shoulder. The angel was advocating doing good, while the devil was arguing to do wrong. In the cartoon, the angel almost always lost because the devil character cheated and would knock the angel off the shoulder.

In a similar way, these verses tell us there is a battle going on within us. “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (v. 21). You and I want to be where God wants us, but Satan is a wily enemy, and he has had millennia to hone his skills at tempting us.

This war waging within us tears us apart emotionally. Satan feeds on our feelings, while God calls us to walk by faith. We are used to walking by feeling, trusting in our emotions. We have done this our entire life. But now we are called to live by faith. Yet our emotions are strong and we need to get them under control. We want to do good, but then we sin, and the result is we feel like a failure, we feel frustration, we feel guilt. We begin to wallow in these emotions. The result is that we find ourselves sitting in the middle of the road, waiting to get run over by the truck that we are convinced is our just reward for our sinfulness.

But there is hope.

3. The solution (24-25)

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

A study of the continental army during the American Revolution reveals on first blush that George Washington was not a very good general. Time after time, we read of Washington’s army losing a battle, retreating and giving up ground. It seemed that every time the American army had a chance to win a battle, they would find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Granted, there were the occasional wins, like the crossing of the Delaware resulting in wins at Trenton, New Jersey. For the most part, though, Washington lost far more than he won.

So why is he considered a good military leader? Here’s why. Washington was able to keep his army together. He was able to stand and fight another day, even after losing battle after battle. Why did he do this? Because he had a belief in what he was fighting for, and he knew that if he and his army persevered, they would eventually win the war.

That’s the good news that Paul wrote in these two verses.

Is it any wonder that Paul would write, “What a wretched man I am!”? Knowing and wanting to do good, only to find ourselves doing quite the opposite results in a sense of wretchedness and frustration. Like the apostle, we cry out, “Who will rescue us from this body of death?”

The answer is found in the first part of v. 25. In Christ Jesus, we have the victory. Even if we lose battle after battle in our fight against sin, we know that, in the end, we will come out the victors, because Christ will reign and sin will ultimately be vanquished. It is Jesus that rescues us from the sinful nature that indwells our bodies, and it is Jesus Christ who will one day glorify our bodies and throw sin and temptation far, far away from us. It is in Christ that we have hope, it is in Christ that we have assurance, and it is in Christ that we have the strength to continue to battle.

When God gave us a new birth of the spirit when we accepted Christ as our Savior, God gave us an awareness not only of sin, but also of His grace and mercy and power and promises. For this reason, we must become people of faith, not of feelings. We cannot wallow in the wretchedness of the sinful nature within us, but we must hold fast to the promises of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. When we walk by faith, then we can come to terms with this war waging within us, and we can find some solace from the senses of guilt, failure and frustration.

Conclusion

Has there ever been a time in your life when you questioned why there is so much evil in our world, in our own lives? Have you ever wondered why God didn’t immediately free us not just from the consequences of sin, but from temptation as well? Have you ever wished that Satan would just leave you alone?

The reason God allows the sinful nature to remain in us is to strengthen our faith and to teach us to rely on Him more and more each day. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9b-10).

When we struggle with sin, when we yield to temptation, when we want to cry out in frustration, remember, it is Christ who sets us free. It is Christ who gives us hope. It is Christ who gives us victory!