Romans 7
COMMENTARY:
: 6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of the letter. (2538 “newness” [kainotes] means freshness, new in nature, in a new state of life which the Holy Spirit places us so as to produce a new state which is eternal life or state of being new or different, the state of being relatively recent, life of a new quality or renewal.)
DEVOTION: What does deliverance mean? When we are delivered from something or someone it means that they are no longer in control of us. We have freedom. There is freedom to do something different or follow someone different. Paul is telling the Romans that the Law is no longer in control of their lives once they follow Christ. They are no longer obligated to try to obey the Law in their own power. They are no longer under the penalty of the Law. The Law brought death. Christians are living under grace. They are raised from the dead through Christ. Baptism is a sign of the death to the old life and the resurrection to the new life.
We are given freshness through Christ. We are to serve HIM with a new power – Holy Spirit. Once we become a follower of Christ we have the Holy Spirit in us to give us direction on a daily basis.
When Christ came into our life everything was different and everything had a new quality to it. Our life was changed forever. However, we still have our old nature with us.
Paul is discussing in this chapter the battle we all fight in our walk with the LORD. The battle is real. The new nature and the old nature are pulling in different directions. There is the law of his mind and the law of the flesh.
The inward man is renewed day by day according to Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians. Paul doesn’t leave the theme that each day we have to make choices to follow the LORD. He also makes it plain that some days the evil in our old nature wins.
The battle in our minds is one that we want the LORD to win each moment of each day. This doesn’t happen. We have to confess our sins and HE will restore our fellowship with HIM. Our new quality of life will never leave us once we have committed our lives to HIM. We are eternally secure. Praise HIS name. Our daily fight will result in eternity in heaven. We are to never give up. HE promises to never leave us or forsake us.
We can never win if we try to have just an external relationship with the LORD. Our flesh is controlled by the old nature. Our inner man is controlled by the Holy Spirit once we become a follower of Christ. It is in the inner man that we can have a proper relationship with the LORD.
Paul is dealing with two views that are sinful: legalism and license. The letter of the Law is legalism. The canceling of the Law is license. We are to live in the Law of our Spiritual Mind or the law of Liberty. We are at liberty to obey and follow Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our life. HE gives us power to win each day.
CHALLENGE: Allow the Holy Spirit to fill your life each day. This is done by confession of sin and yielding to HIM. Once we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we will live a thankful, submissive, and song filled life each day.
: 8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. (1939 “concupiscence” [epithumia] means lust, desire, craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden, coveting, passion, or yearning.)
DEVOTION: The conflict between living for the LORD and sin in our life is unique. Our old nature is sinful. Paul is being honest with those in Rome regarding the struggle between honoring God and living for self.
This conflict is something that happened every day in the life of Paul and in every Christian to present. Our desire is to serve the LORD but in our body we have a conflict that causes us to fight against our human sin nature.
Paul had a desire to always do good but he found evil in his nature. He had a new nature that the LORD gave him but one of the things that can cause us problems is that HE didn’t take away our old nature.
He gives an illustration of marriage as an example of what happens when an individual changes spouses. When we are married it is to be for life. Nothing should end a marriage but the death of the spouse. If someone marries before the spouse is dead they are committing adultery.
Now we have taken a new spouse in the form of Jesus Christ once we become a believer. HE is our husband or as described in other places in the New Testament, HE is our groom. Those who are members of the church universal are the bride. We are waiting for HIS coming to take us to be with HIM.
In the meantime, we are engaged to Jesus Christ with our engagement ring being the Holy Spirit. HE is given at the point of salvation to all those who believe. We are to be faithful to HIM until HE returns because we are wearing HIS ring.
Now it is hard to divorce ourselves from our old nature to live for our new nature in Christ. The conflict never ends while we are alive. We are fighting in this conflict every day. Paul stated that at times the old nature would win.
He wanted to be dead to sin but it didn’t happen. He still sinned until his death. That is true of us too. We will have sin in our life until death. We will never be perfect. We can only ask the Holy Spirit to give us strength, so that, a majority of the time we have victory in Christ. It is available all the time and the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
Remember that we have an advocate with the Father. HIS name is Jesus Christ. HE is before the throne to defend us. Should we sin more because HE is there? NO!! Our responsibility is to try to sin less with the help of the Holy Spirit.
CHALLENGE: Prayer needs to be made each day as we face this world. We can have victory but it means a total dependence on Jesus Christ. We have to put on the armor of God daily.
: 19 For the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. (2556 “evil” [kakos] means harm, wicked, ill, wrong, morally objectionable, incorrect, harmful, incorrect, or faulty.)
DEVOTION: This whole chapter deals with the problem of sin in the life of a believer. Even with a new nature we struggle with our old nature. We all have a besetting sin that we inherit from our family.
Abraham was a liar. His son Isaac was a liar. His son Jacob was liar. It seems that Jacob had a double problem because we find that his mother’s family was liars as well. You see that Isaac married a cousin and Jacob married a cousin.
David had a problem of taking more than one wife. Solomon had more wives than David and they turned his heart away from the LORD.
Each family struggles with the sins of the parents and grandparents. We can’t blame them for our sins but we can understand why we sin in the area that we sin in.
It is because we know what sin is besetting that we can go to the LORD each day and need to ask HIM for help to overcome the family sin. We have other sins as well and we need to ask for victory from Jesus for those as well.
Our goal is the same as Paul’s goal to not to do wrong or sin. We are not to let our sin take control of our life or then we are living in sin. There is a difference between an individual sin and living in sin.
Living in sin means that we are not trying to change. Some believers can fall into this trap and then the LORD has to use hard measures to get them out of that lifestyle. Daily individual sins need confession.
We need to keep short accounts with God. Children are to obey their parents in the LORD. Husbands and wives are to work together for the glory of the LORD.
CHALLENGE: Churches are to train disciples to be faithful to the LORD.
: 25 I THANK God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. (3563 “mind” [nous] means understanding, comprising alike the faculties of perceiving and understanding and those of feeling, judging, determining, the intellectual faculty, capacity for spiritual truth, the faculty of perceiving divine things, of recognizing goodness and of hating evil.)
DEVOTION: Paul just doesn’t stop confronting this issue. He states that there are two laws in our body once we become a believer. Each law is in a battle against each other. It never ends.
Here we find Paul saying thank you to God for Jesus Christ who is his Lord. He knows that without HIS help he will fail in every ministry he tries to do. We are to be a thankful people.
Sometimes or may be most of the time this battle can cause us much grief, we might wonder why the LORD just doesn’t take our old nature away and let us just have the new nature. It is a question that seems to have an answer in the fact that HE wants us to totally depend on HIM each day. If we had only a new nature, we would some to the conclusion that we don’t need HIS help we can do it on our own. That is how our thinking works. If we could do it on our own, we would. It would leave the LORD right out of the picture.
God wants to be involved in our daily life. HE walked with Adam and Eve in the garden each day. HE communicated with them each day. HE warned them concerning eating the fruit for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They didn’t listen and ate of it with the help of the temptation of Satan.
HE is walking with us each day and issues warnings regarding pitfalls in our world. We need HIS daily instruction to keep our eyes on HIM. If we take our eyes off Jesus we start to sink into sin.
CHALLENGE: Keep your mind on the LORD Jesus Christ. HE can carry you through any temptation.
DISCIPLINES OF THE FAITH:
BODY
Chastity (Purity in living)
Fasting (Time alone with LORD without eating or drinking)
Sacrifice (Giving up something we want to serve the LORD)
Submission (Willing to listen to others and LORD)
Solitude (Going to a quiet place without anyone)
SOUL
Fellowship (Gathering together around the Word of God)
Frugality (wise use of resources)
Journalizing (Writing down what you have learned from the LORD)
Study and Meditation (Thinking through your study in the Word)
Secrecy (Doing your good deeds without others knowing but God)
SPIRIT
Celebration (Gathering around a special occasion to worship LORD)
Confession (Tell the LORD we are sorry for our sins on a daily basis)
Prayer (Conversation with God on a personal level)
Silence (Letting the LORD deal with some problems and needs)
Worship (Time to praise the LORD alone or in a group)
DOCTRINES OF THE FAITH:
Scripture (66 inerrant books of the Bible)
Lawverses 1, 4-9, 12, 14, 21, 22
Oldness of letterverse 6
Without the law sin was deadverse 8
Commandmentverses 9-13
Ordained to lifeverse 10
Law is holyverse 12
Commandment is holy – just – goodverse 12
Law is spiritualverse 14
Law is goodverse 16
Law of Godverse 22
God the Father (First person of the Godhead)
Godverses 4, 13, 22,25
Fruit unto Godverse 4
Law of Godverses 22, 25
God the Son (Second person of the Godhead – God/man, Messiah)
Christverses 4, 25
Body of Christverse 4
Resurrectionverse 4
Jesusverse 25
Lordverse 25
Jesus Christ our Lordverse 25
God the Holy Spirit (Third person of the Godhead – our comforter)
Trinity (Three persons of the Godhead who are co-equal = ONE God)
God forbidverses 7, 13
Angels (Created before the foundation of the world – Good and Evil)
Man (Created on the sixth twenty-four hour period of creation)
Manverse 1
Womanverse 2
Husbandverses 2, 3
Wife (Woman)verse 2
Another manverses 2, 3
Marriedverse 3
Fleshverses 5, 18, 25
Carnalverse 14
Sin dwells in manverse 17
Inward manverse 22
Law of sin in membersverse 23
Sin (Missing the mark set by God on man and angels)
Adulteressverse 3
Sinsverses 5, 7-9, 11, 13, 14, 17, 20
Motion of sinsverse 5
Fruit unto deathverse 5
Lustverse 7
Covetverse 7
Concupiscence (lust, craving, covet)verse 8
Deceivedverse 11
Exceedingly sinfulverse 13
Carnalverse 14
Sold under sinverse 14
Conflict in belieververses 16-19, 23
Sin dwells in belieververses 17, 18, 20
Evilverses 19, 21
Law of sinverses 23, 25
Salvation (Provided by Christ’s death on the cross for our sins)
Dead to the Lawverse 4
Body of Christverse 4
Married to Christverse 4
Fruit unto Godverse 4
Newness of spiritverse 6
Hate sinverse 15
Do goodverses 19, 21
Delight in the law of Godverse 22
Inward manverse 22
Law of my mindverse 23
Deliverance verse 24
Serve the law of Godverse 25
Israel (Old Testament people of God)
Law of her husbandverse 2
Adulteress/not adulteressverse 3
Oldness of letterverse 6
Church (New Testament people of God)
Brethrenverses 1, 4
Newness of spiritverse 6
Last Things (Future Events)
Deathverses 5, 10, 11, 13, 24
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