In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul wrote “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:21-24).
I don’t know about you, but I take these words personally. I still feel like w retch, I still feel like I’m not the man I should be, I still find myself doing and thinking and saying things I don’t want to, and still feel like an utter wretch. I still, like a brand new believer, call out to Jesus to rescue me, even though I am a preacher of the Gospel, and I am still finding I need Jesus more today than when I first began to follow after Him. Yet Paul didn’t end the passage with no hope. He lets us know, plainly where our help comes from
“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Romans 7:25).
I am not excused to sin, Paul is saying, but, because of Christ Jesus our Lord, I am not bound by the Law of sin and death. God, by the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ is changing me, He’s making me new, he’s in the process of sanctification. If I didn’t have the Holy Spirit living in me, I should not know, or, at the very most, not care that I sin at all. But instead, I see the Spirit at war with my flesh, seeking to purify me before God, so that I may serve Him all of my days. What a mighty God we serve! He alone can save, and did so by offering His Son to die for all sin. God, forgive me, I am wretch and do not measure up to your standards, and stumble in many ways, but thank you for providing my rescue!
Romans 8:1-16
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
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