For What I Want To Do I Do Not Do

I was reading what has become known as the "do do passage" again (Romans chapter 7). It is highly debated among Christians whether Paul is speaking from the perspective of his current state (as a Christian), or his state as a non-Christian. I am also reading Temptation and Sin from John Owen. He quotes the do do passage in Romans 7 and notes that it was debated in his time as well. Then he says he would not debate the issue of whether Paul was writing from the perspective of a Christian or a non-Christian. The reason he says is because when Paul was actually writing the passage in Romans 7, he was indeed a Christian. Period! I thought that was funny, and rather obvious.

None the less, I learned something a fresh this morning. Paul in Romans 7:18a "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature." Then in verse 25b "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."

Then to pick up the subject again while he is writing to the Galatians, verses 16-17: "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want."

Finally back to Romans 8:7-8 "the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."

It seems, to Paul the great theologian, that the whole human is made up of two parts, the mind, which is the true me; and the flesh, the thing attached to me. These two things war with each other in the whole of the Christian. The Christian has the Spirit of God dwelling inside him. This Spirit of God prompts the mind of man to submit to the law of God (the Bible). The flesh struggles back against the mind of man to make war. Paul closes in Romans 7:24-25a "What a wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this BODY of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

Jesus most assuredly rescued Paul from his body of death. Paul struggled, like us, until his body gave way and separated from the true self. Jesus rescued Paul at Paul's death. And we too will be free from the struggle between our minds, and our flesh someday. Ten out of ten people die, it is inevitable.