O Wretched Man That I Am!

The other morning, mom asked me to read Romans 6 & 7 and give her my thoughts on it.  The debate we have been having, which I am sure so many of you have, is, if sin is no longer accounted to us as believers, can we continue to sin?  It's a tough argument because if you answer, "No!  you can't go on sinning," then you're confronted with, "well, you sin every day, like when you tell that little white lie" or "you're telling me you always faith?" - "well, no" - "then whatsoever is not of faith is sin, so you sin all the time."  Or the piercing accusation, "Well, you're like the Pharisees then, self-righteous."  Ouch.  How does one answer challenging questions like that?  We've always settled it with Paul's battle in Rom. 7:15, "For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do," deciding that this is the conclusion Paul came to "It is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me" [7:20].

What mom didn't know is that the night before I had read the prologue to the book I told you about:  Jerusalem by Simone Sebag Montefiore vividly describing the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.  My heart cried and my eyes shed more than a few tears, seriously.  I was horrified by the depravity of men.  Let me share just a bit with you [beware if you are reading this to children].

"Around the walls, there were gruesome scenes that must have resembled hell on earth.  Thousands of bodies putrefied in the sun.  The stench was unbearable.  Packs of dogs and jackals feasted on human flesh.  In the preceding months, Titus had ordered all prisoners or defectors to be crucified.  Five hundred Jews were crucified each day....  Titus' soldiers amused themselves by nailing their victims splayed and spread-eagled in absurd positions."

or this,

"So desperate were many Jerusalemites....they swallowed their coins, to conceal their treasure, which they hoped to retrieve when they were safely clear of the Romans....  As their bellies exploded, the soldiers discovered their reeking intestinal treasure troves, so they started to gut all prisoners, eviscerating them and searching their intestines while they were still alive." 

"Armed gangs prowled for food....  Even the fighters started to run out of food, so they too probed and dissected the quick and the dead, for gold, for crumbs, for mere seeds....They ate cow dung, leather, girdles, shoes, and old hay.  A rich woman named Mary, having lost all her money and food, became so demented that she killed her own son and roasted him, eating half and saving the rest for later." 

"Josephus, the eyewitness, said 'No other city did ever allow such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, since the beginning of the world.'"

Wow.  Men were horrible then. 

Men were horrible during the Holocaust.  You can read women Holocaust survivors' accounts at Holocaust Research Project.  Here is an excerpt:

"A policeman told me to undress and pushed me to the edge of the pit where another group was waiting for its fate. But before the shooting started, I driven by terror, fell into the pit. I fell on dead bodies. At first, I could not understand anything: Where was I? How did I get there?” I thought I had gone mad. But when people started falling on me, I came to my senses and understood everything. I started checking my arms, legs, abdomen, head, it turned out I was not even wounded. I pretended to be dead. Under me and above me there lay the killed and wounded. Some of them breathed, others moaned. Suddenly I heard a child cry, “Mommy!” It seemed like it was my little daughter. I burst into tears. The execution went on, and people kept falling, I was pushing corpses away in fear of being buried alive. But I did this in a way so that the policemen would not notice."

And this account of Stalin's reign from freerepublic.org.

"Ukraine had a history of free peasant farming. This fierce spirit of independence continued even after Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union. But in 1928 Stalin began his program of collectivizing Ukrainian agriculture. The author describes how city-dwelling Communists, who had virtually no knowledge of agriculture and exhibited utter contempt for farmers, took over rural villages and began to enforce collectivization on the hostile populace. In the process, the deeply religious Ukrainians witnessed their churches torn down or turned into Communist Party offices, priests murdered, and religious objects, such as crosses confiscated.

In 1930, Stalin announced a stepped-up campaign of collectivization and declared that all 'kulaks' (so-called rich farmers, often paupers by comparison with American farmers) were to be liquidated “as a social class.”

The Stalin regime confiscated the entire 1932 crop inculding even the seed grain...  Faced with starvation, the villagers tried everything possible to save themselves and their families. Some of them started eating dogs and cats. Others went hunting for birds: crows, magpies, swallows, sparrows, storks, and even nightingales. One could see starving villagers searching in the bushes along the river for birds’ nests or looking for crabs and other small crustaceans in the water. Even their hard shells, though not edible, were cooked and the broth consumed as nourishment. One could see crowds of famished villagers combing the woods in search of roots or mushrooms and berries. Some tried to catch small forest animals.

Driven by hunger, people ate everything and anything: even food that had already rotted - potatoes, beets, and other root vegetables that pigs normally refused to eat. They even ate weeds, the leaves and bark of trees, insects, frogs and snails. Nor did they shy away from eating the meat of diseased horses and cattle. Often that meat was already decaying and those who ate it died of food poisoning. By 1933 there were numerous incidents of cannibalism, and this despite the fact that the 1932 Fall harvest had been a good one.

The Soviet-created famine in Ukraine was apparently intended to break the independent spirit of the Ukrainians once and for all." 

Now I realize that these are radical examples of depravity and I'll be posting my thoughts on that later, but reading Montefiore's account the night before reading Romans 6 and 7 made me theorize I'd been reading these two chapters wrong.  Maybe you will disagree. Feel free to comment - I'd like to hear them!

I pictured myself listening to Paul who had been Saul.  Listening when early believers heard his supposed tale of conversion. Seeing leary eyes look his way, wondering if this was a trick, where he derived such knowledge so quickly.  Questioning whether he had seen the risen Christ.  

Remember Paul was a fervent Jew.  Remember that Gentiles were outside God’s covenant of the law.  Remember that Paul, the fervent Jew, who persecuted Christ and his followers, suddenly understood the Gospel of Grace.  It was as if a light suddenly went on his head.  (It did!  Literally, read about his conversion here.)  Remember how reluctant Christians were to welcome Paul into their homes.  In light of all this, imagine the questions thrown at Paul as he begins with his summarizing statement in Romans 1:16-17:  “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ:  for it is the power of God unto salvation to EVERYONE that believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.  For THEREIN is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” [Habakkuk 2:4]  

From then on, like Ricky Ricardo, Paul is saying to this totally confused crowd, “let me ‘splain!”

He goes on in Romans 1:18-32 to show the natural progression of sin, and it gets so ugly, that by the time Romans 2:3 comes along, another fleshly sin is arising, one of pride, especially amongst those who have the law, thinking perhaps, “well, we are not like the Gentiles, we have the law!”  The verse actually reads, “But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things!”  But Paul asks them a question (vs. 3) “and thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?”  Don’t worry, he says, in vs. 11, “God is no respecter of persons with God, for as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.”

Imagine the uproar amongst both Jews and Gentiles - sinners?  all of us?  really?  We are going through the same dang thing today.  Every religion thinks their way is right, but religion is always about works of the flesh, whether it be Buddhism, Islamism, Hinduism, Judaism, or Christianity that adds anything to faith and Paul is out to demonstrate that NO WORK of the flesh ever justifies anyone before a just God in heaven.  

He must have met with severe ostracism from his own religion [we’re talking about Paul who had been Saul the Extremist!  Killing those who ‘blasphemed’ his religion].  But Paul concludes all under condemnation in 2:17-25, and says further, “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”

Again, imagine the uproar!  And Paul, who I’m sure went mad with these questions himself after meeting the risen Christ, anticipated them.  Let's just pick out the questions beginning in Chapter 3.

What advantage then hath the Jew?  or what profit is there of circumcision?  

Because the oracles of God were committed to them. [3:2]  

[Because] our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God. [3:5]

What then?  Are we better than they? [3:9]

No. All are under sin. For by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. [3:20]

Where is boasting then?  (And this question I will write about in a future post).

Excluded.  

By what law?  of Works?  

No, by the Law of faith.

Is He the God of the Jews only?  Is he not also of the Gentiles?

Yes...seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

Do we then make void the law through faith?

No, we establish the law.

In Ch. 4 then Paul explains that Abraham himself was justified by faith not works, and that the promise of justification was spoken of by David in Psalm 32:1-2 “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.  Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin,” demonstrating that faith was counted to Abraham for righteousness before his circumcision (the circumcision being the outward sign of his faith) inclusive of all - those of the circumcision and not.  It is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law,but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

Skipping ahead to Ch. 7, Paul speaks specifically to those under the law.  I can almost hear their confusion.

Is the law sin?

No, I had not known sin, but by the law.

Was then that which is good [the law] made death unto me?

No, but sin - that it might appear sin - working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.  

For example, I might fix my hair and do my makeup and think I look pretty darn good, but without a mirror I have no way to judge that.  The law is like that mirror that shows me what I really look like. But it’s more than that because it’s also the standard - Galatians 3:24 says, “But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.  Therefore the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”  When I look into that mirror I can clearly see that I don’t quite measure up to perfection [remember the examination period of the perfect lamb for the Passover - no flaw, no spot].  Had not the law come, I just might not see what Paul clarifies - that sin is the problem in me, sin is in my flesh no matter how holy I think I am and the law clearly shows me I have a problem.  But the law is not the problem.  Contrary, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good [7:12].  It says to us, “Okay, this is the standard” and then we are given that mirror.   

And this is where I think I have gravely misunderstood and misused 7:15 “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do,” as if this is the plight of the believer's walk. I have used this verse over and over again to enable my sin, continue in my sin, and justify my sin.  But I now see Paul is building the case with the unregenerated man where the law is working death in me to the point where I look in that mirror and say, “Egads!  I am ugly!  Who can help me?”  I may not be as ugly as Titus, Hitler, or Stalin, but I’ve got it in me!  Thus I believe Paul’s agonizing crescendo is the cry of every born again believer at the moment of his birth:  “O wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

Which makes it crucial - CRUCIAL - that Jesus Christ came IN THE FLESH to fulfill the law.  There was no other way for sin was in the flesh.  The law and all its fastidious requirements, the feasts and ceremonies given to Moses were not to father a fleshly nation, but to reconcile both Jew and Gentile to God as laid out in Ephesians 2, and to fulfill the blessed hope of redemption given to Adam in the garden [Gen 3:15] “I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,” Abraham and his son [Gen.22:18] “and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,” David [Psalm 51], “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me,” and Job [Job 19:25] “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.”

So what a glorious truth it is for Paul (and every born again believer), knowing that Jesus is that flawless sacrificial lamb who takes away the sin of the world, who imputes his own righteousness to us by faith, to proclaim as in Romans 8:

There is therefore now, no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.  For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin AND DEATH.  For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh:  That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.  For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

Why the crucial difference in my thinking regarding 7:15?  Because vs 14 is clearly speaking about the unregenerated man:  “...but I am carnal, sold under sin, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do,” whereas Paul fully explains the freedom from sin’s power by grace through faith in Chapter 6.  Verses 16-17 clarifies, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?  But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.  

"But God be thanked!" is the same response as that of the wretched man in 7:24-25, “Who can deliver me from the body of this death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

Like the circumcision, Ch. 6:18-22 make clear the sign of the regenerated man in Christ Jesus vs. the unregenerated man : “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness...For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.  What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed [repentant of]?  for the end of those things is death.  But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life.” 

The grand and final question really should then be rephrased from Romans 8:10, “Am I in Christ?”  

“...and if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.....therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.  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.  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God.”

Rather than a message of defeat or even allowance, Romans 7:15 is a message of victory, a message of hope.  Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished.”  What was finished?  My debt, my slavery to sin and death.  

It is surmised that Martin Luther King quoted an old Negro spiritual when he proclaimed his own emphatic relief, 

"FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, WE ARE FREE AT LAST."

Crystal Lewis singing "My Redeemer Lives"