For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. He says the flesh is still there. I'm not in it, but it's still in me. And verse 25, with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. You're no longer in the flesh, the flesh is in you. Every day you face a decision with eternal consequences.
Of course, I'm not talking about deciding what to wear to work or what to eat for breakfast. I'm talking about making the choice either to go to battle against attitudes and actions that contradict God's law or to allow sin to control you. Where do you stand in that war, and how can you fight the battle more effectively? Consider that today on Grace To You as John MacArthur continues to help you answer the question, Why Do I Still Sin? That's the title of his series, and now with the lesson, here's John. Let's open our Bibles and look together at Romans chapter 7, Romans chapter 7, verses 14 through verse 25. It is a picture of the indwelling sin in the life of a believer. This is a very poignant passage.
It is a rare passage in the Bible because it does something that rarely happens, and I cannot think of another passage that does this just offhand. What it is is a series of laments. It is a series of plaintive cries. It is a series of desperate, sorrowful dirges, and they are repetitious. There is one, and then there is two, and then there is a third. And they basically say the very same thing three times.
This is the cry of a broken heart, of a distressed soul, of a soul in great conflict. Now, each of these three laments follows the same pattern. Paul describes his condition, gives proof of it, and then describes the source of it.
He describes his condition, gives the proof that he's in that condition, and then the source of his problem. Let's look at the first lament, verses 14 to 17. And we may spend a little more time on the first because having interpreted that one, the rest will just be apparent to us. The condition is in verse 14, and he starts each one of the laments with a condition. First one begins in verse 14, second one begins in verse 18, and the third one begins in verse 20.
And each begins with a statement of the condition. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshy, sold under sin. The word for tells us Paul is not introducing a new subject.
He's continuing the same subject from the prior passage. That is the goodness of the law, the virtue of the law, in that it shows us our sin. The problem isn't the law.
The problem is us. And the reason he's talking about the law is because the questioners who would have questioned his teaching would have said, well, when you preach salvation by grace through faith apart from law, you are speaking evil of the law. You're devaluing the law.
And he says, not at all. The law is good. I'm sinful. The law does a good work. It doesn't save and it doesn't sanctify, but it does convict of sin. So he says, we know then that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshy, sold under sin. It begins with a straightforward affirmation that the law is spiritual.
What does he mean? It comes from the Spirit of God. It comes from God Himself. Thus it reflects the holy, divine nature of God, just like he said in verse 12.
Remember that? Wherefore the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good. Now, again, let me remind you that I think you have to have here the testimony of a regenerate man. I do not see that unregenerate, unredeemed, ungodly people who do not know Jesus Christ have such perception of God's holy law. In verse 18, he says the same thing, really. I want to do God's law. In verse 19, I want to do God's law. In verse 21, I want to do God's law. Verse 22, I delight in God's law. I don't see such a delight in an unregenerate man's heart.
But Paul then goes on to say, I've got a barrier to doing this, even though the law is spiritual. Here's the contrast. I am fleshy, sarcanous. I am human.
I am earthbound. I'm physical. He doesn't say I am in the flesh. He doesn't say I am totally controlled by the flesh.
That's not true. Look at chapter 7, verse 5. For when we were in the flesh, the sinful impulses which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. We were in the flesh. I'm not in the flesh anymore. Verse 8 of chapter 8, so then they that are in the flesh, and you need to underline in the flesh in 7, 5, and 8, 8. In the flesh is an unregenerate condition.
And his terms are very precise here. In the flesh is an unregenerate, unredeemed position. He says, I am not in the flesh. But he says, I'm fleshy.
I'm fleshy. I'm carnal. Say, can a Christian be that way? Listen to this, 1 Corinthians 3, verse 1. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. Verse 3, for ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying and strife, are ye not carnal and walk as men?
He says to the Corinthian Christians, you're carnal. You're fleshy. You're acting in a sinful, fleshly way. We are not in the flesh. But listen, the flesh is still in us. We're no longer in the flesh in terms of being captive to it.
Now look at verse 18. For I know, Romans 7, 18, for I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. He says the flesh is still there.
I'm not in it, but it's still in me. And verse 25, with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin. You're no longer in the flesh.
The flesh is in you. And that is simply a term for our humanness. It could be the same term as chapter 6, verse 12, let not sin therefore reign in your what? Mortal body. It doesn't reign in your new creation, your new nature. It reigns in your mortal body.
And so his terms are very consistent. Sin is in our humanness. Now any Christian could make the statement in verse 14. People have problems with this.
Let me see if I can make it simple. I'm fleshy. Did you say that? I can say that. I mean, it's true. You say yes, but you're certainly not talking in technical theological terms.
No, no, no. I'm just saying I'm, could I say as a Christian, I'm a sinner saved by grace? I'm still a sinner. God help me if I don't. If I say, well, since I've been saved, I no longer sin. My wife will be up here to give me testimony.
See the point is, I can say that. I can say I'm fleshy or fleshly, carnal. There are things in me that represent that. I get angry. I get irritated. I don't fulfill my duty as I ought to all the time. I don't maintain the diligence that I should in the pursuit of the things of God that I desire. I see my humanness, my fleshliness getting in the way of the accomplishment of all of the things that I ought to do. I'm insensitive to people when they need my gentleness and I'm not gentle, when they need my kindness and I'm not kind and so forth. I see myself as human. I see myself as sinful. I don't always speak godly to everyone who speaks to me in the way that I should. We can all say this.
It's a general statement. And you know, there have been times when you've been the captive of sin. I'll tell you when the times are, every time you sin. Every time you sin, you lost the battle.
Sin took you captive, right? And so Paul puts all our feelings into words by articulating the basis of the conflict inside the believer. And we all understand this perception.
We can all see that there's sin in our lives. It shouldn't be there. It isn't the truest thing about us. It isn't our new self.
But it's there. This is just every Christian's conflict. That there's a sense in which though free in the new nature, we're still bound by the humanness that we dwell in, the proof of it. Verse 15.
Here's the proof. For that which I do, I know not. For what I would, that do I not.
But what I hate, that do I. The self-righteous moral man may deceive himself, but a true Christian led by the Spirit won't. He sees the proof in him of indwelling sin. Notice the verse carefully. That which I do, I know not. And then later on he says, what I hate, I do. The word know speaks of an intimacy of love.
It was said of Joseph that he had not known Mary. And I think its use here as a contrast to the word hate gives us the liberty of understanding it that way. And what he is saying is, that which I do, I do not love. And that which I hate, I do.
Which is another way of saying the same thing. Now that is a real psychological personal inner turmoil of conflict of the most profound kind. He says, my...my will is frustrated. It isn't so much that when he wants to do one good thing, he can't do it. It is that when he sees the law of God and he wants to do it all, he can't. You understand? It is not a debilitating thing that says, well, here I am as a Christian and I'd like to say a nice thing about this deal or I'd like to do something good or I'd like to do something honorable and holy, but I don't know how to do it.
That isn't the idea that he's talking about one specific that he can't do. What he's saying is, there is a whole law of God that I want to obey and I am utterly frustrated in trying to do it. And you know that frustration. No sooner have you done something right that you're patted on the back for doing it and immediately you just did something wrong.
You got proud. And you frustrate yourself and you say just what he said, oh wretched man, when do I get rid of this conflict? His will is frustrated.
It isn't that evil wins all the time, it's just that he has such a high standard because the law is so holy, so just, so good, so spiritual that when he sees the high standard of the law, he wants to win all the time on God's side and any victory for evil looks to him like horrendous defeat. And that's why I say and so often do I say it, that the road to spirituality is paved with a sense of your own wretchedness, always, not your own self-glory. Here is a truly spiritual man.
This is a broken contrite heart. This is a man crying out, oh God, I can't be all You want me to be. I can't fulfill all Your holy and just and good law. And you know, there are a lot of Christians who aren't at this point and it isn't because they're so holy, it's because they're so thin in their comprehension of God's holy law. Well, He's given us the condition and He's given us the proof and now He gives us the source.
And we'll stop with this one. Verse 16, if then I do that which I would not, I consent to the law that it is good. I mean, isn't the law's fault? Because I want to do the law. Well, you say, what's making you want to do the law? I'll tell you what's making me want to do the law, that new creation, that divine nature in me, that incorruptible eternal seed in me, that part of me that John spoke about when he said, if you're really born again, you won't sin. That new part of me, it really longs to do the law. It really wants to do the law. And so I affirm that the law is good because the good part of me wants to do it.
You see? The law is good. Now then, verse 17, if it isn't the law that's bad, if the law's not my problem, now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Now listen very carefully.
You'll miss the whole thing if you miss this. The Christian has in his heart the sense of the moral excellence of God's law. The more mature that Christian is, the more profoundly committed to the direction of the Spirit of God in his life, the deeper his love for the Lord Jesus Christ, the deeper his sense of God's holiness, the greater the longing to fulfill the law. And since it is the best part of him that wants to fulfill God's law, then God's law must be the best. And so it isn't God's law that's the problem.
The problem is sin that dwells in me. It's our humanness again. But here in verse 17 is the key statement to interpret the whole passage. In verse 14, he just spoke in generalities, and he sort of gave us a perspective of his unredeemed humanness as sort of dominating himself.
And you and I know that experience. We get the feeling sometimes that sin just dominates. We just can't be all we want to be for God.
Haven't you ever felt that way? We just can't be as powerful. We just can't be as pure.
We just can't be as holy as we know his law wants us to be. And so we can say in verse 14, I'm fleshy and I see myself captured by sin. And that's a non-technical statement.
That's just a general statement. And he says, I am fleshy. And he's not dividing himself into two. He's not saying, well, it isn't me. It's sin at that point. He's just saying I'm responsible. I think verse 14 is very important because it says to the Christian that if you sin, who's responsible?
It's you. And it protects us from sort of philosophical dualism and this is being taught in many circles today that when you sin, it's just your old nature, so let it sin. You can't correct an old nature anyway. Let it do its thing. And God doesn't hold you responsible. It's just your old nature. He says, I, I, and he accepts responsibility and so must you.
It's me. He's not two people. He's speaking in non-technical terms. When I see God's pure and holy law, I see my sinfulness and I say, oh, how sinful I am. And the more I understand God's law, the more I see how I am captive to sin.
But I don't want you to get confused, he says in verse 17. And let me just clarify this. It isn't any more really I, the do it, but what?
Isn't that important? You see, now he's given you a technical distinction. Now, watch this. It is no more I. When he says, Deucheti, a negative adverb of time, from this point on, something changed.
Now, since Christ has come into my life and I've been redeemed, it is no more that deep inner self. In a technical sense, it's no more I that is doing this, but it is sin that hangs on. Are you beginning to understand the distinction he makes?
You have to understand this in order to understand the character of regeneration. He splits semantic hairs in verse 17, not in 14. In 14 he just makes a general statement. In 17 he clarifies by saying, now get it straight, it isn't really any more I. It used to be I when I could say I was carnal and I was soul under sin and that was really all there was to I. But now it isn't any more really the new I.
It's just Galatians 2.20 all over again, folks. For I, that's the old I, am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet it's not I, not the old I. Christ lives in me. And the life which I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. You see, he's saying it's me, but it's not me.
It's a new me. And that's what he's saying in verse 17. So after salvation, the part of man where sin lies no longer resides in his inmost self. It no longer resides in the ego. It's no longer there in the very substance of what that man is. That's recreated to be like Christ. And sin finds its residual dwelling in His flesh, in His humanness. And he says that in verse 18, in my flesh dwells no good thing. What is the source of Paul's problem?
The condition? Conflict. The proof? I don't know what I want to do. I do what I don't want to do.
The source? End of verse 17. Sin that what?
Dwells in me. Indwelling sin. May I suggest to you that there's a big difference between surviving sin and reigning sin?
Sin no longer reigns, but it does survive in us. I'll close with this. We're like an unskilled artist who has a picture to be painted, clear view. Maybe he's out and he sees the mountains and trees and rivers. He's got his easel. Got all of his little paints. He's ready to paint this glorious landscape.
The thing is, he's a real klutz. And he can't paint stick figures, let alone landscapes. He has the scene to be painted in all its wondrous majesty.
He has the paints to paint it. But he doesn't have the skill. He's debilitated by his physical incapacity. It isn't that he can't perceive it.
It isn't that he doesn't have available tools. It's just that his clumsiness is in the way. The fall is not with the scene, is it?
It's not with the scene. The fall isn't even with the paint. The fall is with the artist's inability. And that's really where the Christian finds his frustration. And I believe that's where we come to the point where we ask the master artist to put his hand on our hand, to hold our hand as we hold the brush and paint the strokes that we, independent of him, could never paint. And that's why we have to realize that the victory we do experience comes only when we yield ourselves to the one who can overcome the flesh. In Galatians, I close with this verse, 517. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.
And these are contrary to one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. Sound familiar? Just like Romans 7. You say, well, I know that battle.
How do you win it? Back up one verse. This I say then. Walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill what? The lust of the flesh. I believe the spirit can give us victory.
But let me just warn you. The more victory you have and the more you mature in Christ and the more you see righteousness winning over sin, the more you will recognize the sinfulness of sin. And the more you will find yourself in Romans 7. It is a place for totally committed, wholeheartedly abandoned people whose deepest, most profound longing is to fulfill the whole law of God. And they are in great distress because they can't do it. And they cry out, oh, wretched man, when verse 24 do I get out of the what?
The body. Terms are always consistent. When do I unload this baggage and get the glory and eternally fulfill the law of God? This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.
Thanks for being with us. John is a pastor, conference speaker, and chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current study from Romans 7 is titled Why Do I Still Sin? John, we are still early in this series on sin, and as we say all the time, sin is universal.
It's corrupted every human in every culture throughout all of history. But just as sin is universal, so is the solution to sin, and that is salvation in Christ. Salvation in Christ is a message we love to proclaim, and it's a message we're now able to take to more and more people worldwide, even many non-English speakers.
That's right. We can't preach the gospel without preaching about sin, because the gospel is the good news of how God forgives sin and takes the sinner from being under wrath, to being under eternal blessing. So sin is an issue. But we talk about sin only to offer the good news of Jesus Christ.
And you're right, Phil. In all the history of Grace to You, we've never been at a point like we are today. It was a few years back, back in 2013, actually, that we launched an initiative called Grace Reaches Out, GRO, obviously. The objective of Grace Reaches Out is to translate a collection of some of our most important fundamental sermons into languages other than English. The sermon number is about 600. We took 600 C-sermons, and the translation and voicing has recently been completed for Mandarin Chinese and Portuguese. Together, these resources make solid biblical exposition available to approximately 1.2 billion people who speak Mandarin Chinese or Portuguese. The Grace Reaches Out Arabic project will be completed very shortly, and the French project should be completed later this year. So Grace to You has extended its ministry through this Grace Reaches Out effort by beginning new projects in Russian and Italian. Not only that, we are prayerfully looking into the possibility of beginning translation projects in Korean and German.
Now let me just sum that up. Already in Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, and of course English, soon to be in French and Arabic, and after that Russian and Italian, and after that Korean and German. All of these are translations of the sermons that I preached originally in English.
The response to this has been astonishing. The interest is just global, as you could understand. We eventually will broadcast these multi-language sermons on radio across the world in the places where the languages are spoken. So pray for this translation work, and pray that many will come to faith in Christ as the Word of God comes to them in their own language.
That's right. And, friend, we want to get John's verse-by-verse teaching into as many languages as we can so that more and more people can learn about Christ and study God's Word in depth. If that kind of ministry resonates with you, consider making a donation today. You can call us at 800-55-GRACE, or write to us at Grace To You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. You can also make a donation at our website, GTY.org. And thank you for all you do to support biblical teaching in your community and in communities around the world. Again, to stand with us financially, call 800-55-GRACE, or go to GTY.org. And thanks especially for your prayers. Your most important ministry to us is to pray for us. Let me also encourage you to check out our website and see all of the resources that have been translated into other languages already. Perhaps you or someone you know could benefit from hearing or reading John's sermons translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Farsi. You'll find those all on our website. We also have books and the MacArthur Study Bible translated into most of those languages.
Find out about all of that on our website, GTY.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Keep in mind, Grace To You television airs this Sunday and be here next week when John continues to help you answer the question, Why do I still sin? It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Monday's Grace To You.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-04-25 09:34:47 / 2023-04-25 09:44:54 / 10