BATTLING SIN

Romans 7: 1-25

(Taken From Encountering the Gospel’s Power, by John Stott)

Romans 7 is known by many Christian people because of the debate it provoked about holiness.  Who is the “Wretched man” of verse 24 who gives such a graphic account of inner turmoil, cries out for deliverance and the immediately appears to thank God for it?  Is this person a Christian or not yet a Christian?  If a Christian, is he or she normal or abnormal, mature, immature, or fallen away?  But it is never wise to bring to a passage of Scripture our own ready-made agenda, insisting that it answer our questions and addresses our concerns.  For that is to dictate to Scripture instead of listening to it.  If we come to Romans 7 with a mood of meekness and receptivity, it becomes evident at once that Paul’s preoccupation is more historical than personal.

OPEN

When you hear the term “the law of God,” what are some of your reactions?

STUDY

Read Romans 7:1-6.  Paul is struggling with the place of the law in God’s purpose.  For the “law” or “commandment” or the “written code” is mentioned in every one of the chapter’s first fourteen verses and some thirty-five times in the whole passage, which runs from Romans 7:1 to 8:4.  What is the place of the law in Christian discipleship now that Christ has come and inaugurated the new era?

1. What legal changes happen to a woman when her husband dies (vv.1-3)?

2. What similar changes happen when we die to the law (vv. 4-6)?

3. Does this mean that Christians do not keep a moral code? (Use this passage as a basis for your answer.)

Summary:  We can summarize three possible attitudes to the law; the first two of which Paul rejects, and the third of which he commends.  We might call them “legalism,” “antinomianism” and “law-fulfilling freedom.” Legalists fear the law and are in bondage to it.  Antinomians hare the law and repudiate it. Law-abiding free people love the law and fulfill it.   Directly or indirectly Paul alludes to these three types in Romans 7.

4. Read Romans 7:7-25.  Focus on verses 7-13.  What is good about the law?  Find all that you an.

5. What limitations do you see in theses same verses to what the law can accomplish?

      6.  What influence as God’s law had on you?

Take a criminal today.  A man is caught red-handed breaking the law.  He is arrested, brought to trial, found guilty and sentenced to prison.   He can not blame the law for his imprisonment. True, it is the law which convicted and sentenced him.  But he has no one to blame but himself and his own criminal behavior.  In a similar way Paul exonerates the law.  It is indwelling sin which, because of its perversity, is aroused and provoked by the law.  Those who say that out whole problem is the law are quite wrong.  Out real problem is not the law, but sin.  It is indwelling sin which accounts for the weakness of the law, as the apostle will go on to show in the next paragraph.  The law cannot save us because we can not keep it, and we cannot keep it because of indwelling sin.

7. Focus on verses 14-25.  What makes this person a “wretched man”?

8. What examples of this kind of struggle have you seen in your own life?

9. Paul says in verse 18, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”  What does this imply about a person’s relationship with God?

10.   In spite of this conflict, why is Paul thankful (vv. 24-25)?

Summary: We return to the question whether the law is still binding on Christians and whether we are expected still to obey it.  Yes and no!  Yes in the sense that Christian freedom is freedom to serve, not freedom to sin.  We are still slaves (v.6), slaves of God and righteousness (6:18, 22).  But also no, because the motives and means of our service have completely changed.  Why do we serve? Not because the law is our master and we have to, but because Christ is our husband and we want to.  Not because obedience leads to salvation, but because salvation leads to obedience.  And how do we serve? “We serve in the new way of the Spirit” (v.6).  For the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the distinguishing characteristic of the new age, and so of the new like of Christ. 

APPLY

Paul addresses three approaches to God’s law: legalism (you have to obey it), antinomianism (you just ignore it) and law-fulfilling freedom (you don’t count on keeping the law to make you right with God, but you love God’s law and enjoy following it).  Which best describes your current relationship with God’s law?  If this is different from some other stages of your life, what caused the change?

Verse 24 says, “What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Using your knowledge of Scripture as well as your own experience with God, how would you answer that person?

PRAY

Use Romans 7:4-6 as the focus of your prayer.  Praise God for the way he is revealed there,  thank him for what he offers, confess our sins as these words reveal them to you and ask God to continue his work in your life.