Romans 7:15-25a Commentary

Both Benjamin Franklin and George Washington reportedly quoted Edwin Sandys’ insistence, “Honesty is the best policy.” Yet this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson may make its proclaimers wonder if honesty is really the best policy.

Some of Jesus’ followers like to quote Scriptural passages such as Psalm 38:18 as insisting confession is “good for the soul.” Yet what would happen if a preacher stood with Romans 7’s Paul and admitted, “I do what I don’t want to do”?

Would that pastor be fired before he or she even stepped down from the worship platform? What about the rest of Jesus’ friends? What would happen if we publicly confessed with the apostle, “I do what I hate to do?” Would our fellow Christians condemn and shun us?

Our text’s Paul is honest with God, his readers and himself. In verse 15 he admits to genuine confusion: “I do not understand [ou gnosko*] what I do.” To use a somewhat modern cliché, the apostle simply doesn’t “get” what’s going on within him. He admits to a kind of civil war raging within him.

Who are Paul’s inner enemy combatants? “I do not do what I want [thelo], but I do the very thing I hate [miso],” he wonders in verse 16. Paul echoes this confession in verses 18b-19: “I have the desire [thelein] to do what is good [kalon] but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good [agathon] I want to do [thelo], but the evil [kakon] I do not want to do – this I keep on doing [prasso].”

Quite simply, this faithful follower of Jesus sincerely wants to love God above all and his neighbor as himself. Yet he finds he actually hates both God and his neighbor. The Spirit has, in other words, transformed the apostle’s desires. But the Spirit still has work to do cleaning up his actions. Paul knows better than to keep on disobeying God. But he finds himself stubbornly powerless to be obedient.

Yet in this grim confession is embedded a kind of good news for God’s adopted children who struggle to act like God’s family members. Jesus’ friends, implies the apostle, are not alone in our failure to be the people God both creates and equips us to be. After all, Paul was arguably among the holiest and most righteous adopted children of God who ever lived. Yet he genuinely struggled to act, talk and even think in holy and righteous ways.

However, the apostle’s adopted siblings in Christ may wonder whether he comes dangerously close to trying to justify his disobedience in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. “It is no longer I myself who [disobeys God],” he insists in verses 17-18, “but it is sin [hamartia] living [oikousa] in me. For I know that good [agathon] does not dwell [oikei] in me, that is, in my sinful nature [sarki].”

In verses 21-24a Paul adds, “I find this law [nomon] at work: Although I want to [thelonti] do good [kalon], evil [kakon] is right there with [parakeitai] me. For in my inner being [eso anthropon] I delight [synedomai] in God’s law; but I see another law [heteron nomon] at work in me, waging war [antistrateuomenon] against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner [aichmalotizonta] of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched [talaiporos] man I am!”

Paul reminds his readers sin is not a power but also a resident power. Sin naturally makes itself right at home in God’s image-bearers. It wants to leave no room for agathon (“good”) in God’s dearly beloved people. Sin’s power longs to have and maintain sole control over people in whom it makes its home.

In fact, Paul implies, sin’s power is like an obnoxious guest who just refuses to vacate the premises that are God’s people. Even when the Spirit wrests control over Jesus’ friends from sin’s power, sin refuses to leave. It continues to argue with and wage war against the Spirit for control of our lives.

My wife and I are currently dealing with an ant infestation. They’ve somehow found a way to make themselves at home in our apartment. We’ve done what we can to make it clear to them that they’re not welcome guests. My wife and I have tried to eradicate the ant home invaders. But they just keep battling cleanliness for control of at least a corner of our home.

While my protestations may sound a bit like me justifying the ants’ presence, I’m merely trying to state the reality of their presence. In a similar way it may sound as if Romans 7’s Paul is trying to make excuses for his disobedience. But he’s more likely merely trying to point to sin’s stubborn power in ways that he means to encourage his readers who struggle in similar ways.

Is there a safe space in Christ’s Church and the Christian community for Pauline honesty about our struggles against sin’s power? Confession of sin is an integral part of weekly worship for some of Jesus’ followers. But the early Church fathers designed it to be largely confession of our corporate sins. In worship we mainly join together to confess what the Church and groups of God’s people have done to disobey God.

Yet while individual confession may not have a large place in corporate worship, if Jesus’ followers are to feel free to confess our own sins, space must be made within the Christian community for it. God’s dearly beloved people must be free from worry that honest confession will lead to our siblings in Christ’s rejection of us. Since God for Jesus’ sake unconditionally forgives God’s adopted children, Jesus’ adopted siblings want to make safe space for our fellow Christians to confess our struggles with and against sin’s power.

Of course, there is room for debate among God’s dearly beloved people about the repercussions of some confessed and forgiven sins. Church leaders may need to be very deliberate if not reluctant to reinstate leaders who have fallen into sin in ways that have especially harmed vulnerable people. Confession and forgiveness are not optional. But reinstatement to positions of authority may be.

Christians who find safe space to join Paul in confessing our weakness may find ourselves feeling talaiporos (“wretched”). Sin’s war against both the Spirit and our Spirit-fueled longings sometimes leaves Jesus’ followers utterly miserable and exhausted. We sometimes feel, to borrow the paraphrase of The Message, “at the end of our rope.”

Where, then, can God’s dearly beloved people turn? As Paul asks in verse 24, “Who will rescue [rhysetai] me from this body that is so subject to death [thanatou]?” Who, in other words, in heaven or on earth can save Jesus’ friends from our downhill, one-way road to spiritual death? The Message paraphrases Paul’s question as, “Is there anyone who can do anything for me?”

The apostle offers the only answer on earth or in heaven. “Thanks [charis] be to God,” he marvels in verse 25, “who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” God rescues God’s dearly beloved people through the saving life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His Spirit wages war against sin’s power within us, more and more killing off sin’s might and increasingly raising to life a Christlikeness that is equipped to say no to our sinful desires and yes to God’s good and loving plans and purposes for us.

Jesus’ friends don’t just make space for honest confession because God graciously does so. We also make that space because we trust God isn’t yet finished with those who admit we’ve failed to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. We welcome honest confession of sin because we know the Spirit remains busy sanctifying not just other sinners, but also each one of God’s dearly beloved people.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

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My friend and colleague Andy Matts recently posted something on social media that’s related to Romans 7. He quoted a preacher who told his hearers: “If you’re truly saved you won’t even want to sin.” Reading that made me wonder if that preacher had ever even read this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. Not only does that pastor’s claim of Christians never wanting to sin contradict Romans 7. It’s also dangerous for God’s adopted children. It may make those who struggle to obey God wonder if God has really saved us.

Online Andy responded to that pastor by noting we “sinners sit there saying, ‘But … I feel the conflict but … I can’t help it. I’m not good enough’.” Andy, in fact, went on to wisely counsel his readers, “My friends. The Christian life isn’t about the absence of intense conflict. It’s the presence of it.”