The Law Which Was Spiritual Was Limited By The Fleshliness Of Men (Including Christians) Whose Desires Often Caused Them To Do What Was Bad Rather Than What Was Good (7:14-8:4).
When looking at this passage we have to see it in the context of the whole letter. We must ask, is it just a parenthesis, or is it part of a constructive, ongoing presentation? Chapter 6 has dealt with our oneness in Christ in relation to dying to sin and living with Him, resulting in our need to be yielded to righteousness. Romans 7:1-6 has demonstrated that we have died to the Law as an accusatory agent and have been conjoined with Christ. Together they seem to have made the Christian life so straightforward. But as they heard it read many Christians would have found that their lives did not measure up to this high standard, and there might have been the danger that they may be caused to lose faith through it. It was therefore necessary to introduce a counterbalance in order to indicate that in practise sin within still had to be coped with at times, even though for the Christian triumph was available through Jesus Christ our LORD (Romans 7:25) and through the powerful work of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:2-12). Romans 7:14 to Romans 8:4 thus enables the oft-times struggling Christian to recognise that his repeated failures, occurring alongside his successes, do not disqualify him from being a child of God. They are rather a sign of the fleshliness still within him. Most Christians who live in trying circumstances or in spheres of great temptation know this experience only too well. It is therefore perfectly consistent with Paul's theme that this chapter deals with failures at times in the Christian's struggle to die to sin in practise, preparatory to announcing the grounds on which he can overall have confidence for the future, and the way that he can achieve an overall victory. Indeed chapter 8 demands something like chapter 7 in order to highlight the importance of the work of the Spirit in overcoming the flesh, whilst at the same time acknowledging that there may at times be periods of failure.
So while the experience described below is in one sense the experience of all men, as all men struggle with conscience and often fail, it would appear to have in mind especially the Christian (that is why it is placed here), for it is only the Christian who ‘delights in the Law of God after the inward man' and who ‘serves the law of God with his mind' (Romans 8:25; Romans 8:27). To the Jew the Law was a burden heavy to be borne (Acts 15:10). It is the Christian who delights in God's Law even though he often fails to fulfil it. He wills to do good, even though he often does not do it. And it was clearly Paul's experience too, as the use of the first person singular implies. Furthermore it is only the Christian who seriously wars against the law of sin, finding himself taken captive by it (Romans 7:25) until he is delivered by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). Non-Christians have ‘the mind of the flesh' even if they do have struggles with conscience. They fulfil ‘the desires of the flesh and of the mind' (Ephesians 2:3). Thus their mind does not war with their flesh. Their motives are always carnal.
But can we really see Paul as living what appears at first sight to be such a defeated life? The answer is probably both yes and no. Initially, of course, we have to recognise what he is saying. There are two possibilities:
1) That he is describing times of failure in his life, which distressed him greatly without saying that they occur all the time. That would mean that we are not to see what is being described as, in its fullest sense, a picture of the totality of his everyday life (or indeed that of anyone). Rather it would indicate that he is describing what happens during times of special temptation (for no one is like this all the time, not even the non-Christian). He is describing what he would be like if it were not for the work of the Spirit, and what he is sometimes like even as it is.
2) That he is speaking as one who has recognised the truth about himself, that his whole life came short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Being so close to God his conscience would have been very discerning. As Jesus had indicated, the glory of God is especially reflected on earth in loving God with heart, soul, mind and strength, and in loving one's neighbour as oneself (Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27). And even Paul would recognise that this was something to which he never quite attained because of the fleshliness within him. Love God as he did, he recognised that he continually came short of the ideal. Love his neighbour as he did he recognised that he sometimes fell short. What Paul was concerned about might be something that does not concern us too much, simply because we are involved in other sins which are taking up our attention, but to someone who had attained a special closeness to God they would have been seen as heinous.
We should note that Paul does not spell out any particular sin in spite of the fact that he had done this in Romans 7:7-13. He wants his hearers to read into his words their own sins. What troubled him may not have troubled them, and vice versa. And he may also be reflecting on earlier days. As with us all, when Paul began his Christian life he may well have been subject to the constant trouble and defeats of one or two of the grosser sins, and there were no doubt times in his later life when he might have appeared to himself, if not to others, to have relapsed with regard to them, in his thoughts if not in his actions. While others may have witnessed an exemplary life, he may well have been conscious of battles within of which they knew nothing. But later in his life the sins of which he would have been most aware may not have been what we see as the grosser sins, but may well have been those which related to his own heavy responsibilities in Christ, a sense which would come upon him of not always having done what he could have done. His sense of what was sin (coming short of the glory of God) would be highly tuned. That was no doubt why towards the end of his life he could speak of ‘sinners, of whom I am chief' (1 Timothy 1:15). As sin battles within us we are all at times on the edge of such defeats, indeed we all constantly ‘come short of the glory of God'. For who can even conceive of such a standard?.
For as we are in ourselves this passage does describe what life would be more obviously like if we did not have the Spirit active along with us, and indeed it still is like this for most of us some of the time. So Paul deals with this aspect of his life, partly in order to encourage the weak, and partly in order to illustrate the spirituality of the Law, which even he finds himself unable at times to keep. But thankfully Paul then launches into the overall remedy. Victory is attainable through Jesus Christ our LORD, as the law of the mind triumphs over the law of the flesh (Romans 7:25), even though sin is still active; and it is obtainable by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which sets us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2); with the full explanation of that victory through the power of the Holy Spirit being then described in Romans 8:3-17. So it is very probable that we are to see in this description in Romans 7:14-23 a deliberate portrayal of the human side of the Christian's battle for victory over sin, which sometimes breaks through in the way described, but which is supplemented by the activity of God through the Spirit, which then transforms the whole situation. And that this is so is confirmed by Romans 7:25 where even the intervention of Jesus Christ our LORD still leaves the person with the struggle between mind and sin, ‘with the mind I serve the Law of God, and with the flesh the law of Sin'.
But having said all that we also need to recognise that the truth is that because of our fleshliness we do all sin all the time. How many can say that they love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength all the time? We may at times in periods of high exaltation feel that we do so, but even then it is very questionable. We do not know what such love is capable of. But the truth is that we do constantly come short of the glory of God, and the ‘practical sins' about which these verses speak arise out of our failure in this central issue.
It cannot, however, be denied that some of the arguments for seeing these verses as referring to unregenerate men are fairly strong. They have convinced many. And those arguments are partly based on expressions which would appear to be inconsistent with a reference to someone who was regenerate. Thus, for example, the person being spoken of is described as ‘sold under sin' (Romans 7:14). And the question is asked, could such an expression be used of a person who in Christ had died to sin (Romans 6:2) and was therefore no longer ‘under sin', one who was now ‘free from sin' (Romans 6:18) and was no longer a slave to sin.
We have, however, to remember in this regard that such statements as the latter depict a theological position. They are not literally true in experience. They have to be ‘reckoned on' by faith (Romans 6:11), whilst here Paul is speaking of individual practical experience. While theologically we have died to sin, and are no longer ‘under sin', and as such are dead in the sight of God, it is not always so practically. All of us experience present sin (even perfectionists if they remember that to come short of the glory of God is to sin) and find ourselves acting as servants of sin, not because we are willing servants, but because we find that we do not have the power to resist. At such times we can truly cry out, ‘I am carnal, sold under sin'. Our slavery is an unwilling one. But the unregenerate man is not ‘sold under sin'. He willingly presents his body to sin in order to be its slave (Romans 6:13). He willingly presents himself to sin, not to obedience (Romans 6:16). He may live respectably in order to soothe his conscience and satisfy his pride, but he still resists yielding to God. His whole life is thus carnal. It is the true believer who constantly fights against sin, even though he can regularly find himself defeated. He is not a willing slave. He is ‘sold under it', a captive taken by force. He knows that he ‘has sin', he does not deceive himself (1 John 1:8). But he thanks God that he always has a way of cleansing and forgiveness (1 John 1:7; 1 John 1:9).