Who is this man with indwelling sin? (Rom. 7:13-25)

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How do you think about the sin within you?  How do you think redeemed people relate to sin?  Is there such a thing as a sinful nature in those who are born again?  Has the new birth eradicated it?  And is it possible this side of heaven to become elevated to a place where one does not have to worry about sinning anymore?  Or, on the other hand, are even the saved so bound up with a sin nature that they can’t help the sin that they find themselves doing?  Can we excuse the sin in our lives because we just can’t help it?

It seems to me that these questions are still being asked today, one way or another.  Some really do believe in perfectionism, and embrace a view of human nature that sees sin not as something in us, but only in terms of that which is done by us.  Others embrace a view of salvation that does not see freedom from sin as essential to it.  They would say that a person can be saved and go on under the dominion of sin and be saved.  In fact, they would say that to teach anything different is to undermine the gospel of grace.

How do we navigate questions like this?  Where do we go in God’s word to find answers?  Well, I would argue that Romans 7 is one of the primary places we should look when we look for answers to the question how we should think about indwelling sin in the believer.  This is important because it means that the main point of this passage, which continues to be the inability of the law to sanctify us because of the presence of indwelling sin, is not just a message that unbelievers need to hear – it is a message that believers need to hear as well.

We need to hear this because understanding the nature of this struggle with sin in the believer that Paul describes here helps us to avoid two things.  First, it helps us avoid the problem of spiritual superficiality stemming from the temptation to think that we are better than we really are.  If you think that a person who is born again shouldn’t even have to struggle with sin, you are going to have to ignore real defects in your heart and life and cover them up with a superficial appearance of righteousness.  This doesn’t generate true godliness but a fake self-righteousness, the kind that Paul had before he came to see the spirituality of the law.  You’re not going to help yourself by pretending that you have no problems, no spiritual struggle.  Romans 7 is a good reminder that such a struggle exists and that we don’t have to pretend that we are better than we really are.

Also, it helps us to avoid the problem of despairing over the defects that we see.  There are two responses to this.  One, you can deny that these defects are there, like the Pharisee.  Or, you can despair over them.  You can say, “O wretched man that I am!” without ever coming to see that the Lord Jesus Christ can and is delivering us from the body of this death (7:25).  One of the benefits of Romans 7 is to help those who are struggling with the sin within, who don’t struggle with denial but with despair, to see that even the apostle Paul dealt with this – and if he dealt with it, then surely there is hope for the rest of us! 

And yet, many today do not believe that any part of Romans 7 is about the believer.  Now we’ve argued that verses 7-12 do reflect Paul’s experience as an unbeliever, as a self-righteous Pharisee whose life was turned upside down when he was awakened to the true sinfulness of his nature as a result of understanding the true nature of the law as that which was meant to govern his affections and heart. And I would argue that verse 13 is a summary of that whole position, as well as deflecting another false implication of what he had just been saying.

Paul had said that sin took opportunity by the law and killed him (see verses 9-11).  So the question arises, “Was then that which is good made death unto me?” (13).  That is, was the law, that which is good (12), that which caused Paul to die?  And Paul responds, “God forbid, may it never be.”  It is not the law that kills, it is not the law the produces death – it is sin, the sin within that uses the law to produce death.  And it does so in order to show just how terrible sin is: “But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.”

This then leads to the statement in the following verse: “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin” (14).  In this verse, Paul is explaining why the law can’t be the thing that causes death.  It can’t because the law is spiritual, which is to say, the law is in its nature a product of the Holy Spirit.  And so the law can’t cause death, because the Holy Spirit does not create things that cause death.  Sin is the only explanation for that, not the law.

Now it seems to me that this reflection causes the apostle to think not only of the presence of indwelling sin prior to his conversion to Christ, but of the presence of indwelling sin even as a believer, and this is what he proceeds to reflect on in verses 14-25.  However, a lot of folks are adamant that this cannot be the case because of the thing he says here in verse 14: “I am carnal, sold under sin” (14).  The argument is that since “carnal” means “of the flesh,” or “fleshly,” and the apostle’s whole point is that the Christian is no longer in the flesh, this cannot refer to a believer.  As he puts it in the next chapter, “ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (8:9). 

And then there is the problem of being “sold under sin.”  This seems to imply sold in slavery to sin, which is further backed up with Paul’s reference to “another law . . . bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (7:23).  But this is a problem because the apostle has already pointed out that union with Christ frees us from the dominion of sin: “For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (6:14).  So these two things that define the man of Romans 7:14-25, being in the flesh and being taken captive to sin, seem to imply that this must refer, not to a believer in Christ, not to someone who has been born again and given new life in the Spirit, but to someone who is a stranger to all of that.

We might also add that it is also argued that the Holy Spirit is missing in these verses, and that if this were a reference to the experience of a believer, surely Paul would not be describing him or her in that way, especially in light of his statement in 7:6 and then in all of chapter 8.  The Christian is a person who “serves in newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.”  The Christian is someone who walks not after the flesh but after the Spirit (8:1, 5).

What do we say to all this?  We must deal with this question, must we not?  Because it will affect the way we attempt to interpret the passage and the way we think about this struggle that Paul is describing here.  If he is talking about an unsaved man, well then the point is the same as in the previous verses.  But if this is true of a saved individual, then we can draw some deductions about the nature and presence of indwelling sin in the saved.  So the question is, which is it?  What follows are three arguments that the identity of the person in these verses is that of one who is saved and regenerate: one from the tense of the passage, one from the terminology of the passage, and one from the terrain of the passage.

Argument 1 from the Tense of the passage

You will notice that the apostle has been using the past tense in the previous verses.  We also noted that in those verses he is describing his own personal experience prior to his conversion to Christ.  But then you will notice that he uses the present tense (with one exception in verse 14) in verses 14-25. 

Now the uniform explanation from those who claim that Paul is talking about an unbeliever here is that Paul has switched to the present for dramatic effect.  However, this is ultimately unpersuasive to me for the reason that the apostle has been using the past tense for the precise reason of speaking about his past.  If that is the context, it would seem that his switch to the present tense is not for dramatic purposes but in order to alert the reader that he is now talking about his present.  Paul’s use of the past tense in verses 7-13 was not for dramatic effect, but to make a historical point about his pre-conversion experience with the law of God.  I would argue that the prima facie explanation for his use of the present then, in line with his usage in the previous verses, is also to make a historical point about his experience since becoming a believer.  This seems to me to be the most straightforward explanation of Paul’s usage of the present.

Now some have pointed to the connection between verses 13 and 14 as requiring us to read the following verses as referring to a person who is not born again.  In verse 13, Paul has argued that the law is not responsible for causing death, but rather the sin within.  Verse 14 supports verse 13: it begins with the word “for.”  So if verse 13 refers to the unregenerate, and verse 14 supports verse 13, verse 14 and the following verses must also refer to the unregenerate. 

However, this ignores the fact that though there is real discontinuity between our life before Christ and our life in Christ, yet there is also an unfortunate continuity.  The sin which plagued us before we were born again is still present in those who are born again.  It is true that it no longer has the power it once had.  Christ is now the true King of our hearts.  We have the ability, in Christ, to say no to sin and to do what is right and holy.  But the sin within is still lurking in the shadows, and its presence means that if we look to the law for sanctification, we are going to lose every time.  The “for” of verse 14 is not connecting the idea that all applies to the unregenerate; rather, it connects the idea that the law is impotent to change, whether we are born again or not.

Now I did say that there is one exception to the use of the present tense, and that is the use of the perfect tense in the verb “sold” in verse 14, “sold under sin.”  In Biblical Greek, the perfect tense generally referred to action completed in the past with results continuing into the present.  But sometimes, however, the emphasis is not on what happened in the past, but the results in the present.  This is, I think, the case here.  Paul is sold under sin.  This is not simply a reference to the past but to the continuing of a past reality into the present.  As we’ve already pointed out, there is real discontinuity with the past, but there is also the sobering continuity of a sin nature that we will have to battle until we get to heaven and join the souls of just men made perfect.

Argument 2 from the Terminology of the passage

It seems to me that most of the arguments that this is referring to an unbeliever are centered on the language Paul uses in verse 14.  If the regenerate person is in the Spirit and not in the flesh, how can he be described as “carnal”?  And if those who are united to Christ are freed from sin, how can they be described as “sold under” it? 

First of all, the term that Paul uses here, “carnal,” is not a term he uses either in chapter 6 or 8 when he describes the unbeliever.  Actually, it is a term he uses to describe believing Corinthians when they act in a way that is inconsistent with the Christian ethic (cf. 1 Cor. 3:1-4).  The fact of the matter is that every time we sin, we are acting in a carnal way.  That is not the same thing as being “in the flesh,” which really is a way to describe the state of being dead in sin (cf. Eph. 2:1-3).  There is therefore a difference between being “fleshly” and being “in the flesh,” in the same way that there is a difference between a person who sins and a person who is defined by and dead in sin.  Those who are “in the flesh” are those who are defined by sin; the one who is “fleshly” or “carnal” describes anyone, born again or not, who acts out in a sinful way. 

The fact of the matter is that every believer faces this problem, the problem of the flesh, even after they are born again, even after they are saved.  We are not totally freed from this reality.  It lies behind every exhortation in the NT to not sin.  For example, Paul says to the Galatians, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:13-16).  Paul is speaking to believers here, and his exhortation is that they should not give into the flesh by failing to love one another (which was a present threat).  They are told to walk in the Spirit so that they do not fulfill the lust of the flesh (again, a real threat).  All this assumes that the flesh breaking out in acts of sin is still a present reality in the life of the believer.  Hence there is this need to resist it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And this is a battle that Paul assumes that every believer faces.  It is something that, this side of heaven we will not be freed from.  And so it is in that sense, in the sense that we will always have to battle the flesh, that Paul says that he is “sold under sin.”  Again, this is not a term Paul uses in either chapters 6 or 8 when he described those who are under the dominion of sin.  I think the apostle is actually being careful here.  He wants to acknowledge the reality that indwelling sin is something from which we cannot be freed.  How do you say that?  One way is to say that we are sold under sin.

It may seem like Paul is contradicting himself, but he is not.  Yes, it is true that in a real sense we are no longer under the dominion of sin when we are united to Christ.  But this does not mean that we cannot at times be taken captive by sin, otherwise the exhortation of 6:11-13 would make no sense: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”  Note the logic there: because you are dead to sin, don’t let it reign!  But the exhortation to not let it reign assumes that from time to time a believer can be overtaken in a fault and overcome by it.  This is not the same thing as being under the dominion of sin, for those who are dead to it are able to fight it in a way that was impossible before they were united to Christ.  We are sold under sin, not in the sense that we are helpless against it, but in the sense that this side of heaven we will always have to fight it.  It is an inescapable fight.  It is an unending fight.  It is a fight to the end.  That’s the meaning of “sold under sin.”  In particular, it is not contradictory to the apostle’s previous teaching in chapter 6.

I think that some people who claim that it is possible to be without this struggle as a believer do so because they really don’t appreciate the high standards of God’s law.  In Jerry Bridges’  book, The Discipline of Grace, he makes the point that even we who are believers in Christ and embracers of the gospel can become like the Pharisee in Luke 18 (the one who told the Lord, “I thank you that I am not like other men are…”).  We do so by defining sin conveniently narrowly.  He writes, “A large part of our problem as evangelical believers is that we have defined sin in its more obvious forms – forms of which we are not guilty.  We think of sin in terms of sexual immorality, drunkenness, lying, cheating, stealing, and murder.  And in more recent years we’ve tended to focus on the societal sins of abortion and homosexuality.  We see the ever-increasing pervasiveness of these more flagrant sins, and we see ourselves looking good by comparison.”  He then goes on to talk about “refined sins,” sins like a judgmental spirit, a critical attitude, a backbiting and gossiping tongue, an unforgiving spirit, and unloving heart, and so on.  We can unfortunately become very comfortable with these sins, especially when we are comparing ourselves to those who commit the more “obvious” sins like adultery or murder.  Bridges go on to say, “One of our problems with these so-called refined sins is that we have become too comfortable with the whole concept of sin.  Because we do sin so frequently we learn to coexist with it as long as it doesn’t get too out of control or scandalous.  We forget, or perhaps we have never learned, how seriously God regards all sin.”[1]

The point is this: when we consider how high God’s standards are, we are going to become more aware of our failures, not less, even as mature and experienced believers.  We are not going to glide over our sins; we are going to deplore them as the acts of rebellion and defiance that they are.  When we are willing to face up to all our sins, including the respectable ones, we will probably be more likely to identify with the struggle depicted in the verses we are considering here in Romans 7.  It is when we start ignoring our more hidden sins that we can convince ourselves that the struggle Paul depicts in these verses doesn’t apply to us.  And I think that is dangerous. 

Far from being incompatible with the Christian experience, Paul’s words nail it on the head.  The fact of the matter is that even if you take a different interpretation of this passage, if you are honest with yourself you will find Paul’s experience to be exactly mirrored in your own, even as a believer. 

It is also important to note that the apostle does not just say that he struggles with sin.  That could describe an unbeliever.  He says that in the struggle with sin, he does not identify with the sin that seeks to capture his heart: “Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (17); “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” (20).  He also identifies his true self with God’s law, and puts some distance between his deepest longings and the sin that rises up within: “If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good” (16); “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (19); “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members” (22-23); “with the mind I myself serve the law of God” (25).  Such was the intensity of the apostle’s longing for complete conformity to God’s law, and his identity with it, that he distances himself from the sin that dwelt within him as if it were someone else, and depicting his lapses into sin as that which was against his will (although without absolving himself from responsibility, for he recognizes that the sin is still his sin).

Note that he identifies his longing for holiness with the desire of his mind, or his inner being.  I take this to mean that fundamentally, Paul longed for holiness, although such longing did not always come to fruition.  He truly hated sin (15) and delighted in God’s law (21), but that did not mean that the desires of the flesh were always thwarted.  When he said that he did not will, or desire, or delight in sin, he does not mean that there were no desires thereto or gratification upon the performance of it – he only meant that the deepest feelings of his heart were against it.  What he really desired, and delighted in, was conformity to God’s law, however he may have been entangled in sin.  His true personality, the “inward man” (22) and the law of his mind (23,25), were against the performances of sin, and he groaned upon every remembrance of being entrapped in “the body of this death” (24).  And thus the struggle.

This is not how the Bible describes unbelievers.  This is how Jesus described the Pharisees of his day (who were very much like Paul when he was yet unconverted): “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it” (Jn. 8:44).  Fundamentally, unbelievers are estranged from God and his law.  They may struggle with sin, but in their case, sin lies at the very heart of who they are apart from Christ.  Again, that does not seem to be the case with the individual described in our text.

Some have attempted to apply the struggle with sin described in the text to the unregenerate by a reference to ancient secular literature.  “Some contemporary scholars who hold this position back it up with a quotation from the first-century Roman poet Ovid: ‘I see and approve the better things, but I pursue the worse’.”[2]  However, this is not applicable to what the apostle is describing.  The heathen writers said these things from the compulsion of their consciences, not from the longings of delight and complacency in the law of God.  As Calvin, referring to such writings, aptly comments, “…these act under a constraint when they subscribe to the righteousness of God, as their will is wholly alienated from it, but the godly man consents to the law with the real and most cheerful desire of his heart; for he wishes nothing more than to mount up to heaven.”[3]  Again, he writes, “That the whole, then, of this reasoning may be more fully and distinctly understood, we must observe, that this conflict, of which the Apostle speaks, does not exist in man before he is renewed by the Spirit of God: for man, left to his own nature, is wholly borne along by his lusts without any resistance; for though the ungodly are tormented by the stings of conscience, and cannot take such delight in their vices, but that they have some taste of bitterness, yet you cannot from hence conclude, either that evil is hated, or that good is loved by them; only the Lord permits them to be thus tormented, in order to show to them in a measure his judgment; but not to imbue them either with the love of righteousness or with the hatred of sin.”[4]

Argument 3 from the Terrain of the passage

When I talk about the terrain of the passage, I’m referring to the connections between this part of Romans 7 and what has gone before (chapter 6) and what comes after (chapter 7), in other words, the context.  As we have noted, this is actually often given as the reason why many interpret Romans 7 the other way.  They will argue that there is such a difference between how Paul describes the believer in Romans 8 and the experience of Romans 7, that there is no way Romans 7 could describe the regenerate.  The claim is that the two descriptions are simply incompatible.  It is further argued that in Romans 7:6, Paul sets up his argument through the end of this chapter and into chapter 8: 7:7-25 describes life under the law, “in the old way of the written code” (ESV), and 8:1-39 describes life in the Spirit, “the newness of the Spirit.”  Moreover, as we have noted, the Spirit is never mentioned in 7:14-25, whereas he is mentioned over and over again in chapter 8.  All this, it is argued, means that Paul must be referring to his pre-conversion experience.  This is indeed a very tidy way of putting things, but it seems to me that there are serious problems with this view.

First of all, it does not follow that since the Spirit is never mentioned in these verses (7:14-25), therefore the only possible interpretation of this text is in reference to the unbeliever.  Actually, the fact is that the Spirit is mentioned hardly at all in the previous chapters, but this doesn’t mean that the work of the Spirit isn’t a part, for example, of the work of uniting us to Christ in chapter 6.  Also, this ignores what is almost universally recognized to be the main point of the passage, that the law in itself is powerless to sanctify.  Those who look to the law for sanctification are not looking to the Spirit, so of course the Spirit is not going to have a place in the conversation at this point.  More importantly, this is not just true of unbelievers, it is also a truth that believers need to hear.  Is it not possible for believers to rely on the flesh in the attempt to become more holy?  Of course it is.  Why else would our Lord remind his disciples, “Without me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5)?  The epistle to the Galatians was written to believers who were attempting to do this very thing.  Paul is reminding such folks that the presence of indwelling sin makes this reliance upon the resources of sinful flesh stupid and foolish.  Such people need to hear again the apostle’s expostulation of Romans 7:24-25: “O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from this body of death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  The law cannot sanctify you, believer; only Christ can.  The argument of Romans 7:14-25 is the negative argument against the law; the positive argument for the Spirit comes in Romans 8:1,ff.  To sum up, the division between Romans 7 and 8 is not, as is often put, unregenerate versus regenerate, but rather law versus Spirit.  And since believers are in constant danger of going back to the law as a source for sanctification, we need to be constantly reminded that, due to the prevalence of indwelling sin, such a going back is really regression rather than progression.  And that’s the point of Rom. 7:14-25.

Secondly, the description of the person in our text must refer to a believer, given what Paul does say in the following chapter of those who are in the Spirit and those who are not.  We’ve mentioned that the description of the struggle most likely refers to the struggle believers have with sin.  We receive further confirmation for this when we look into Romans 8.  For example, in 7:22, the apostle says, “For I delight in the law of God in the inner man.”  Now in chapter 8, he says of those who are “in the flesh” that “the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither can be.  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:7-8).  As John Stott put it, “… how can an unregenerate person, who is hostile to God’s law (8:7), declare that he delights in it (7:22)?”[5]

Now it is said that Paul is referring to his delight in the law that he had as a rabbi before his conversion to Christ.  But the man who is speaking is not Paul the rabbi but Paul the Christian.  The sentence “I delight [again, present tense] in the law of God in my inner man” does not naturally lend itself to the interpretation: “I delighted as a Pharisee in the law of God, although only in the way that an unsaved person could.”  Without any such qualifiers, the most natural way to read that sentence is to read it as a genuine expression of present delight in God’s law, as such.  And that is just impossible for those who are not born again, who are yet genuinely in the flesh. 

Thirdly, I just want to note again that the conflict that Paul describes in chapter 7 is perfectly consistent with the picture that he paints of life in the Spirit in chapters 6 and 8.  Being born again, being in the Spirit, does not make you immune from the assaults of sin.  It does not relieve you from the struggle against sin.  Sometimes people come down so hard on the position that Romans 7 could never refer to a believer that they make you wonder if they think the true Christian is someone who is always on the mountain top, who is always experiencing victory, who never has a bad day and who is always joyful and rejoicing.  However, there are indicators, even in Romans 6 and 8, that this is not the case. 

We noted this reality of struggle already in Romans 6, but you see this also in Rom. 8:13, where Paul exhorts his readers: “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.”  It is still necessary to fight the sin in our lives.  In his book on The Mortification of Sin, which was essentially an extended meditation on this text, the puritan John Owen wrote, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you . . . .  There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on, and it will be so whilst we live in this world.”[6]  How is this possible?  It is possible because of the reality of which Paul speaks in Romans 7.  Thank God that we have been freed from sin’s penalty and power.  However, we are not yet free from its presence.  That awaits the age to come.  And so, until then, we will have to fight the sin within, we will have to keep mortifying and struggling with and fighting against sin.

Conclusion

We are going to draw out some of the implications of this passage, Lord-willing, next week, but for the moment, let me leave you with the following reflection.  Whether or not you take these verses to refer to the believer or unbeliever, the main point remains unchanged: the law is impotent and powerless to change us.  But this is something that even we, as believers, need to hear.  We need to be reminded that the law tells us what to do but it cannot make us do it.  What this means is that the power to do what we ought does not come from within; it comes from outside of us.  When we are called to be holy, the very last thing we ought to do is to look within.  Rather, we ought to look to Christ.  It is in union with him in his redemptive death and resurrection that we are empowered to be holy men and women.  Our only resource here is our greatest resource.

This does not mean that we “let go and let God.”  It does not mean that we do not put effort into the pursuit of holiness.  But what it does mean is that as we fight sin and pursue holiness, we do so looking to Christ, trusting in him, and crying out to him for daily grace and empowerment. As Paul ends this chapter, “Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?”  Who indeed?  Not you, and not me.  Rather, with Paul let us “thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  We thank him because he not only can but does deliver those who put their trust in him.

This is a very freeing truth.  If the power to fight sin does not lie within me, but rather in a gracious and loving Savior who has promised to save those who come to him, then it does not matter how powerfully the iron claws of sin have closed around you.  For there is a Savior who is more powerful than the most powerful sin in which you feel trapped.  Trust in him, look to him, and looking to him, relying on him, turn from your sin.  The truth of Christ can and will set you free (Jn. 8:32).

[1] Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace, (NavPress [Kindle Version], 1994), p. 22,25.

[2] John R. W. Stott, Romans: God’s Good News for the World, (IVP, 1994), p. 206.

[3] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans: Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol. 19, (Baker, 1996), p. 266.

[4] Ibid, p. 262-263.

[5] Stott, p. 207.

[6] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Vol. 6, (Banner of Truth, 1967), p. 9, 11.