King's Banner Podcast
Welcome to King's Banner Podcast. We got tired of the same ole answers when we started looking for help when it came to our walks with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help you in your Christian walk.
King's Banner Podcast
Romans 7 Without The Confusion
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Romans 7 is one of those chapters people quote when they feel stuck, ashamed, or exhausted: “I keep doing what I hate.” But if we treat that paragraph like the whole story, we end up with a Christian life defined by excuses and defeat. We want better than that, so we open the text, read it carefully, and keep it anchored to the larger message of Romans: justification by faith alone, the purpose of God’s law, and the shift from flesh to Spirit.
We talk through the big interpretive camps that show up around Romans 7, including antinomian readings that shrug off obedience and more “pious” readings that quietly assume real change is impossible. Then we trace Paul’s logic: the law is holy and good, but it also exposes sin, gives language to what our hearts already do, and leaves us face-to-face with our inability to produce righteousness through willpower. That’s why isolating Romans 7 can be so disorienting, especially when you ignore how hard Romans 6 pushes against continuing in sin and how strongly Romans 8 announces freedom and “no condemnation” for those in Christ Jesus.
We also get practical about modern buzzwords. When is “addiction” a real category, and when is it a cover for a sin pattern we don’t want to put down? What is legalism actually, and why do people use the word to deflect correction? If you want a clearer Bible study framework for Romans 7, law and grace, sanctification, and life in the Holy Spirit, you’ll leave with categories that restore hope and sharpen repentance.
Subscribe for more, share this with someone who wrestles with Romans 7, and leave a review that tells us what passage you want us to tackle next.
Welcome Back And Life Update
SPEAKER_00Hey guys, welcome back to the King's Banner Podcast. I have returned from uh a little bit of a hiatus.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean you had another baby. I mean I didn't, but this is a big deal.
SPEAKER_00My wife did, yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Your wife labored. You both have a baby. And now we have a baby. And had had a baby. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. You know, whatever the semantic range of language is there. I think you're I think we're okay. I think we're gonna make it. Yeah. Congratulations on number three. Thank you. It's pretty awesome. It's uh two girls, one boy. You were outnumbered in that house.
SPEAKER_00I am outnumbered.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There was a brief period when it was a tie, but no longer.
SPEAKER_01There was a time in my life when I was in control. And at some point in my old age, my bladder took over. It's just too much coffee.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, too much coffee, and you know, after 35, you're not even 35, so this year, I think. Oh, right? Uh I think 91. I think so. 91. You knew the math song. Well, correct. So yeah. Anyways, yeah. Okay. Fred is approving our math. Welcome back. Math is hard. Okay. No. Um Mike, if you're listening, thanks for thanks for covering her. Oh, yeah. And uh doing doing a good old Jonah episode.
SPEAKER_01We're trying to stay consistent and keep dropping these, but I gotta tell you, life is a little bit wild. Yeah. But we're making it work.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. So um no, it it's it's good to do them because it keeps me on track, it keeps you on track, um, it keeps our listeners from you know rioting.
SPEAKER_01Or listening to some, you know, pagan nonsense instead. This is true. This is true. You never know. You never know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because you know, time is a zero-sum game, as you know. Um, but enough of the you know, we we didn't get any witty banter the last two
Why Romans 7 Feels Disorienting
SPEAKER_00weeks. Calibration of change, my friend. Yes, indeed. Um, so I'm I was reading, yeah, uh, I've been reading Romans, and Romans is a great book. Um Paul's Magnum opus. Yeah, but I I tell you what, I read through Romans 7. I don't like it's not the first time I've read through Romans before, but I'm just reading through Romans 7. I'm like, it I I swear he's speaking Greek. Um it's it's one of the more like Dr.
SPEAKER_01Seuss kind of moments in Paul's literature.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, it's like and the law causes you to sin. Does that mean the law is bad? May it never be. The law is not causing. Am I a bad thing? Am I to go past the law? And and then all of the law stuff, all of and um at the end, who will save me from this body of death? Yeah, exactly. And I just mean that I yeah, I'm reading this going, okay. Obviously, I can look and get the grand themes he's going for, but yeah, I I'm confused. Okay. Um, so I wanted to get into it. Take get your take on all right, what's the driving points he's getting at here?
SPEAKER_01What let's talk about the flavors of Christianity in this particular
Antinomianism And Other Reading Styles
SPEAKER_01ball pit. Okay. All right. Um, so you're gonna have the types who are widely um antinomian. This would mean like um anti-namas. It literally means to be uh set against the law. Like the law not only has nothing to do with salvation, it really doesn't have that much to do with sanctification because I'm allowed to do what I want. Yeah. Works have absolutely nothing to do with salvation, therefore, uh turn your body from a temple into an amusement park, become some kind of disgusting hedonist, then it's totally fine because you're saved and it is what it is. Yeah. Um there's kind of this approach to things. There's the other side of this, which is the pietistic, man. I I don't even know. I don't say that in the negative sense that sometimes that carries. Yeah. There's the pietistic approach to Romans 7, which is something along the lines of I am deeply aware of how flawed I am. And so this resonates with me on a level that I think is more accurate. You have the charismatic um brushing away of this text like it doesn't really exist or has, you know, uh is some like thing that they don't actually want to confront. And you have um uh a trichotomist and dichotomist war over this text as well, which is kind of interesting. Okay. So so all of that to say, there seems to be different moods theologically that uh accompany interpretations of this text, and we can try to get into it and walk through them a little bit. I'll tell you where I land, I'll tell you what I think is orthodox, I'll tell you what I think is right out, and then uh maybe it'll help bring a little bit of clarity to some of that. So maybe let's let's read through it. Yeah, let's read through it. Do you want to read through the whole thing or take it in parts? I think what we should do is we should read through the whole chapter. I think we should then
Dying To The Law Illustration
SPEAKER_01chop it up.
SPEAKER_00All right, let's do it.
SPEAKER_01Deal? Yeah. Okay. All right, it says this. Or do you not know, brethren, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives. For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she should be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man. Okay, so he's communicating the relevance or the connection we have to the law with regard to life and death. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to what to another, to him who raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law, for I would not have known about coveting if the law had not said, You shall not covet. But sin taking the opportunity through the commandment produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead, I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died, and this commandment which was to result in life proved to result in death for me. For sin taking an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me. So then the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me, may it never be. Rather it was sin in order that it might be shown to be sin by affecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would be uh become utterly sinful. Okay, you're right. We should take this in two chunks. Okay. That's plenty. All right, so talk me through this. What are you seeing? What's standing out to you? How can I how can I help you navigate it? So how can I help you, King's uh King's banner?
SPEAKER_00King's banner it. How can you help me upper room? That was a great that was a great joke. It was it was a near one. It was a beautiful joke. We're gonna upper room this business right here.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly right. Yeah. All right, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Um, so pointing out the um the the woman who her husband dies and she's free from that law.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh kind of with fresh eyes, what I'm what I'm seeing is um by her husband's death, she's not allowed to break the law of adultery. She's not bound by it anymore. Um, insofar as that by dying to our sins um and being raised with Christ, we're not allowed to where it's doesn't it's not licensed to break the law.
SPEAKER_01The law doesn't become obsolete, it becomes fulfilled, yeah, and continues to serve its purpose, but not in the same capacity or holding over your life with regard to that marriage.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Um the the one thing that all right, so work it working through that. So um, you know, when you were oh go ahead.
SPEAKER_01It's okay. The the the picture he's painting is hey, what's our relationship to the law at this point? Yeah, is the law good? Is it bad? Because some people are gonna be like, the law means nothing, it's the old testament, we have nothing to do with that anymore. It doesn't help you in any capacity. I think the law is incredibly important, it really does matter. Jesus said, not jot one jot or tittle would be taken away. Yeah, that's like the smallest little you know mark that was made. Yeah, it's really important. But the book of Romans in this particular portion is really dealing with the relevance of the law and its effects on a particular individual who is Jewish in particular, like people who grew up under this, people who are part of Israel, part of the Jewish system, people were under this. I received the oracles of God, this is what it was supposed to look like. He gives an illustration. If somebody has died, are they still under the law? Are they still having to fulfill their obligations to the law? And his answer is no. You know, this is why we say till death do us part. Yeah. Because when you die, technically you are part. Yeah. Maybe
How The Law Names Sin
SPEAKER_01there's another uh uh podcast there about that, because I'm sure I just upset some people, but Mormons. Anyway. Um if Mormons listen to this podcast, I would be somewhat surprised. That'd be wild. But now that we spoke their name, you know, we've we've brought them in from the outside. We've conjured. Mormons, Mormons, Mormons. Yes. Ah, yeah. Okay, so he's trying to deal with the relevance of the law, life and death, which is important. Now I'm gonna bring this up because I want to set up some interpretive principles when we think about this, okay? So we shouldn't read this passage just in isolation. No. We should read this passage in light of the author, in light of the book itself, in light of the canon, um, in light of the time period, who's writing it, why are they writing it, what what is this for? Um, and this is in the middle of a large communication diatribe about life and death. Yeah. The spirit versus the flesh, the old law versus the new spirit you know, life that God has given to us, um, the old way, the new way. It's important that you understand where you're at. And I think if you take Romans 7 and just drop that on somebody's desk, it's gonna be very confusing. I think if you read it in context with the rest of what's being communicated, it's wonderfully helpful. Yeah. So we should know that the primary thrust of this book, although there are many things, is justification by faith alone. Yeah. Now the whole point is that works don't save you. The law doesn't save you, being a Jew doesn't save you, being around Jewish people doesn't save you, being aware of sin doesn't save you. Yeah, it's faith in Christ that's what saves you.
SPEAKER_00Well, and I think that is borne out by the fact that one of the primary methods of of proselytizing has been the Roman's road.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like very good.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, like that's that's you know, I worked at a Christian summer camp. Yeah, um, one of the ways that they teach you to take these kids through through how salvation works and faith alone is the Roman's road and memorizing the scripture.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00The wages is it?
SPEAKER_01God knows. Yeah, it's those are helpful things. Yeah, why this passage is so disorienting is because it seems like Roman is Romans is giving you this picture of victory, and like, man, this is good. We have salvation in Christ, all this good stuff is happening. Okay, I'm getting it. Yeah, the law is is not bad, but it is revealing to us that we're sinful. That doesn't make the law sinful, it makes it a good thing that it's revealing sin, but it is producing sin in me because I had this sin nature, this propensity towards wickedness that I'm carrying around.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, okay.
SPEAKER_00And then he goes into talking about the law revealing the desire to sin. Like, yeah, I didn't know about coveting until I saw the law that said thou shalt not covet. I'm like, hold on.
SPEAKER_01Like, so walk me through that because obviously there's I think the best way to think about it is um the law gave us a taxonomy for the things that we knew were wrong. Okay. Now I have a name for it. Okay, you know what I mean? Um so so there's this text in Romans 5 where it says um sin was not imputed where there is no law. And it doesn't mean that people weren't sinful, because then it says, Nevertheless, sin reigned from Adam until Moses, even those who did not sin in the likeness of the offense of Adam.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So the idea is like sin's prevalent, it exists, people are still sinful. Job says men fly into sin like sparks coming off a flame. Like people knew what it was, but the law gave clear language to and explicit commands around what sin was. And then once you know what it is, ah, I do that. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Like it's it's not like it's not like Cain thought that he was justified in murdering Abel just because nobody said thou shalt not murder.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's what's that's what's interesting, is like what what categories did they have before it was named or understood? Like the first sin, you know what I mean, did it have a name, well, disobedience. I didn't do what God said, but then it becomes more perverse way of doing. You know, it's not just I'm not doing what God said, I'm inventing ways to do evil, I'm continually breaking and twisting that which is straight and put together. And so names begin to uh be given for the different things that people were doing. And once the taxonomy of what to do and what not to do is laid out, I think it becomes obvious for people. And now not only do I know that I'm doing the wrong thing, um, I feel guilt and shame around it because not only is it wrong, I want to do it more now that I know it's wrong.
SPEAKER_00You know, it this it interestingly enough, it brings to mind uh uh, you know, I'm just gonna go there. The gay stappo, the gay cult, the alphabet community. Sure. They keep inventing new words to describe their sins. And it's not when you have a word to describe sin, it's not it's not a good thing to be proud of. Like all of these different genders or or types of way they're rebelling against God, and in general, like the different crimes people commit and all the things, yeah, like putting a name to it uh isn't something to think, ah, rubber stamp, it's got a name now. It's it's a sign that uh looking at that if you have to have a name for sin because somebody's committing it, um it goes to your point of we're inventing new ways to break the law, yeah. Break God's yeah, perfection. It's it's in fact when you add these words, when you have to have a word for something, uh it's a tragedy, not a point of pride.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, I think it's the law is a school teacher revealing to us what sin is, and at some level, the depravity that we have and our proclivities and desires for sin. And then we live under those things. And then it it kind of continues on.
The Inner War Paul Describes
SPEAKER_01It says, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into bondage to sin. Okay, notice we've shifted from a conversation um about the law and hypotheticals really into a vivid description of his own fight with it, right? Yeah. For what am I or what I am doing, I do not understand, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I'm doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. So now no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me, for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For the willing, I'm sorry, for the willing, for the willing is present in me, but the doing uh of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do want, uh, that I do not want. But if I'm doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells within me. There's the Dr. Seuss back and forth.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was gonna say, way to way to have really well-written sentences, therefore.
SPEAKER_01Nailed it. This kind of sums it up. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good, for I joyfully concur with the law of God and the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law which is in my members, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then on the one hand, I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other with my flesh, the law of sin. Okay. And then he gets into Romans 8, which we can talk about a little bit more in a second. All right, so we see this massive conflict of the inner person. Yeah. All right. I want to do the right thing. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. I uh want to do um the wrong thing, even though I know it's wrong. Although at some level I don't want to do the wrong thing because I would like to do the right thing. So I'm kind of in torment. I have this battle going on within me.
SPEAKER_00It feels like there's two wolves inside of me. Oh my gosh, don't do that. Yeah. No, I interestingly, I had a I had a teacher um in high school who uh, obviously not Christian, um, made the case that um selfishness runs everything anybody does, and nobody ever does something that they don't want to do. And the things you do are just the things that you wanted to do more than the other things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'd agree with that.
SPEAKER_00In general, I think there's some truth to that, but it like it goes against the principle Paul's talking about here of I do the things I don't want to do. And like, so if you were ruled by your flesh, if you were not born again, yeah, you're absolutely going to fall into doing exactly the fleshly thing.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think about I I think about um Esau, like especially with this, right? Couldn't find repentance even though he sought it with tears. Yeah. I really, really want this. Just not enough to do the thing I have to do to make it a reality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I think that's true. I think um my view of sin is generally that you have the ability to turn away from sin and turn to God. I don't think you have the desire apart from God acting on your heart and doing something there. Yeah. Well, it's not as though you're not free to make that decision. It's that your freedom is in fact what is keeping you from making the decision in the first place. Yeah. Um whole nother podcast. Okay, here's what I would say. When I look at this text, I think the greatest attraction to it for its reading uh just plainly is that most people's experience with um some kind of sin in their life is that there is an ongoing fight with sin. They feel this tension in their bones that I would not like to sin anymore, but I continue to do this stupid thing that I don't want to do. Every single man or woman I know that has had an ongoing struggle with pornography in their life will go to this passage and use it as some kind of strange justification for their ongoing sin.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, this is the antinomian thing that I was talking about. And like I said, there's another side of this group of people, especially a lot of reformers, will take this side of um this is very much somebody who is saved, who is dealing with a battle with sin that we will never totally be out of. And here's what I would say: I think there's two, there's an orthodox way to look at this, and I think there's an unorthodox
When Romans 7 Becomes An Excuse
SPEAKER_01way to look at this. The orthodox way to look at this would be to say sin is referring to the reality that there are things in you that will not be totally right until you get to the other side and you meet our Savior face to face. Yeah. All right. Um, you're going to continue to find things in you that are not lined up with Christ. And need to be changed. And that's going to drive you crazy. I want to do the right thing. I want to be fully sinless and totally put together. And the reality is, I'm not. The things I know I shouldn't do, I'm continuing to work through those things and getting healthy. The unorthodox way to look at this, in my opinion, is to make the sin that he's talking about a specific sin and use this as an excuse to not be able to get over the particular sin that he's talking about. So if you have a particular sin and you're going to this text and saying, Wretched man that I am, you know, I don't want to do it, but I'm going to continue to do this particular thing. I would say, well, what you're doing is now you're allowing this particular text to speak louder than a bunch of other texts in the Bible that say if you go on sinning in this manner, there no longer remains for you a sacrifice for your sin. Yeah. Or Jesus saying you'll know them by their fruits. Or even better, if you go to Romans 6, verse 2, what then shall we say? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it may it never be. How shall we who have died to sin still live in it? Okay. So there's a lot of strong language around this communication from the Bible that if you continue in sin after saying that you have believed these particular types of sins, it's actually evidence against your own faith. And at the same time, first John uh also tells us that if we say we have no sin, we're a liar and the truth is not in us. So I I will again, like I said, I would want to point to people and say, hey, if you look at this text, and what you take this to mean is no, this is the life of a believer. And I think he's dealing with the idea of sin in general, but not the specificity of a particular individual sin that and you know what I mean, that I'm I'll never be able to get over, and that's just the cross I have to bear. I think that's actually unorthodox, that's wrong, and is standing in the face of what I think lots of other portions of the Bible teach. Um and would promote antinomianism, which is a heresy. Yeah. Okay. Uh I where I land on this text uh is that this is Paul talking about being a um what's the best way to say this? A follower of Yahweh before uh the revelation of Christ. I think this is his real vivid understanding of what it's like to live under the law apart from the regeneration, renewal, and inner indwelling of the spirit. There's a particular type of literature which is called historical present, which is used lots of times throughout the New Testament, but particularly in John and the gospel here as well, where somebody goes from I'm talking about something that's in the past, and then I dive into it in a very vivid way and talk about it like it's the present as a literary tool of taking you into the moment to help you understand the tension that exists in that particular circumstance.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01I think we're actually looking at a type of um uh a historical present literature here where he's explaining the reality of uh what it's like to live under the law from the viewpoint of somebody who spent his entire life living out the law and trying to walk it out and saying uh the things that I don't want to do, I keep doing. I affirm that the law is good. This is what I wanted, and I cannot do the very thing that I want to do. It's important in here uh to note that as he's talking about this, none of this has to do with like loving Christ or following Jesus or faith or any of these until the very end when he's like, Thanks be to God, and Jesus Christ who gives us the victory over these things. So I think he's really trying to communicate to them this is what living under the law looks like, apart from or until you receive Christ, until you actually get this. Now,
Romans 7 As Life Before Christ
SPEAKER_01I make this point because uh Romans 7 is not located over in um uh Romans chapter 1 and 2 or 3. Uh it's located or sandwiched right in between the statements that he's making with regard to us being dead and now alive. And Paul starts out this conversation about the law by referring it to like when you used to be married, but once you have died, you're no longer to live this particular way. You're not bound to it the way that you used to be bound to, and then explains a very vivid picture of what it's like to be bound to this thing that you can't get away from because you haven't died yet. Okay. All right. So something else to note here is um when you're looking at the the chapters around this, there's an old and a new that keeps getting like reinforced. Used to and a now. All right. So if you go to like uh Romans 5, you're gonna have Adam and now you have Jesus. Romans 6 is your life of death, and now your new life. And then Romans 7 is under the law, not under the law. Romans 8, it's the spirit, not the flesh. It's this kind of it's not this, it's that. Okay. And I think if you take Romans 7 and make all of it communicating uh outside of that framework of this, not that, I think you end up reinterpreting it in some unhelpful ways. Okay. So uh just to further drive this home, what shall we say then? Are we to continue to sin so that grace may increase? May it never be. This is Romans 6.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01May it never be. How shall we have died to sin, continue to live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Here's this language of dying to these things again. Therefore, we who have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that his Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this that our old self was crucified with him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. For he who is died is freed from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again, death no longer is master over him, for the death that he died, he died once to all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Even so, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God, for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. This is important. Go to Romans 8. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death. What the law could not do, weak as it was, through the flesh, God did. Sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. We do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. He only gets more aggressive in what he says there. Like it he keeps elevating it and elevating it and elevating it. And by the end, he's like, What's gonna separate us from the love of God? Can life or death or any of these things? We're more than conquerors through Christ who loves us. And then when we get into when then when you get into Romans 9, then he's talking about your like election and how God has chosen you and invited you in. And then 10 is talking about the reality that, oh, it's not Jew or Gentile, but there's an inclusion of these Gentiles. And even in Romans 11, God has preserved Israel, like this whole conversation. So I think if you read the context of Romans and stop being so like myopic, you know, and just hyper-fixated on this one passage, you read the whole email together, not the one paragraph over and over and over again. I think it makes it pretty clear that he's giving an illustration of what it looks like to live in death under the law or even under the old Jewish system, which did not liberate you from the law until your own death occurs. What is the death that he's talking about? I think it's pretty clear, especially in Romans 6, because of his communication about death being the picture of us dying in baptism with Christ and being raised with him, that that death is a death to our old self. Yeah. And our new life in Christ, born of the Spirit, alive because of what Christ has done, is no longer to live under that kind of condemnation or sin. And this does two things. One, it removes your excuses for continuing to live in patterns
Romans 6 And 8 Offer Victory
SPEAKER_01of sin that you shouldn't. Um, and two, it tells you that you actually have the ability to conquer those things and not to continue in habits and continual patterns of sin that you're not supposed to live in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I like that you say habits and not addictions, because I think I think we too often classify things as addiction when they're just sin patterns and habits that we don't want to let go of.
SPEAKER_01I think addiction is just a it's a it's a way of saying this is something I want to continue to do. And addiction has almost become a word that's consistent with um uh like excuse. You know what I mean? Like it's uh it's a convenient disguise for um sin I don't want to get rid of. I also think we call things addictions that I don't know if we should call addictions, but this is a conversation for another look. Uh if you're addicted to your wife, that's a good thing. Yeah. Okay, you're addicted to your kids, that's a good thing. Addiction generally has a negative connotation, but we could dig into that more later. Yeah. I think when you're looking through Romans, everything Paul is communicating, it starts in the beginning. Like, look, the wrath of God is being poured out against sinful people. Chapter two, he gets into it and he's like, listen, I just want you to know being a Jewish person or a moral person doesn't keep you from that. So unbelievers are screwed, people that are technically believers or moral people are screwed. Chapter three is like everybody is screwed and in sin. Chapter four is like justification by faith alone. Here is how we're saved from all this condemnation. How is it that this faith worked? Well, you put it in Jesus, who is the new Adam as opposed to the old Adam. And then he's like, Well, what does that look like? Well, chapter six looks like death. Yeah. So you die to who you used to be, chapter seven, because it's futility to live under the law. You have to live through Christ. Chapter eight, this is what living by the Spirit looks like. Chapter nine, this has always been God's intention for you. Chapter 10, it's to everybody, not just this one particular uh group in this particular area. God's plan is for the whole globe. He's gonna invade and call people to himself. Chapter 11, God has preserved these people. Chapter 12, it's the new life that we have and how this acts, not just inwardly, but outwardly towards everyone else. Chapter 13, what we do with uh the authorities that we're in and the society that we find ourselves and what we should submit to, what we shouldn't submit to. Chapter 14, we get into like unity and issues of conscience. The same thing in 15, they're working together in chapter 16. He's like, Deuces out. Love you guys, go get after it. Was Paul ever at this church? No, somebody else started this church, he wrote this letter to this church, like, you guys are doing great, because I can't be there. Let me give you everything all in one letter. Go nuts. I think if you understand, like that's the arc of Romans, like I said, and you quit like zoning in on, I don't know, I don't know about this. Like, I think you're just missing the forest for the trees, and um, you're getting bogged down and stuff. Like I said, the guys who have a hyperfixation on this are guys who usually have a sin problem that they're just not ready to put down. And uh, I actually think this text and some of the teaching on Romans 7 has been more damaging and detrimental to Christians um than a lot of other texts because it's excuse in and told Christians that Christ died to freed you to free you from sin, but actually that only happens when you're dead. And it's a very pious and religious thing to acknowledge that I'm never really gonna be able to defeat sin. It's always gonna be my master. And that is very not Christian.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it sounds like the same sort of piety, false piety and excuse making that um you get from certain teachings of revelation. And oh well, we're just gonna sit in the back of the church and wait. There is something very attractive to Christians about pessimism.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's weird. I don't know why. Yeah, I think it's just that like our natural tendency, and this goes, okay, so this goes along with the the dichotomous trichotomist. I was gonna bring that up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, talk to me about that.
SPEAKER_01So my view is this you are still let's uh I don't want to use the word programmed, but you have still trained yourself to live and think and act in a certain way in your life because you have allowed sin to drive for long enough and do things long enough in you till you legitimately get a new heart, that your new heart takes time, along with the Spirit of God inside you, to illuminate what needs to change, where I believe lies over truths. God doesn't reveal to all of us all at once everything that needs to change, or I think we would just implode, you know what I mean? It's it's like we're children, and God starts us on milk, and then he gives us meat, and then we're supposed to be mature and then teaching other people, like it's this process of growing. And so I think for a lot of people, there are things in us that we're frustrated by because we've created habits and patterns of living that are inconsistent with scripture, and instead of going to war with those sin patterns and believing that Christ has given us victory, we've created doctrines to excuse ourselves from the need to get rid of them. We've uh agreed with Satan that we're in bondage. We've agreed with Satan that we are um unable to defeat these things, you know what I mean, even through the power of Christ. Uh, when you're dead, it'll be better, you know. So some of this pessimism, some of the frustration we have around sin, some of the inability for people to break free from these things, I'm gonna say, and I think this is a very Christian response, your problem actually is belief. You don't believe that when Jesus said you're free or you're actually free. You don't believe that when Jesus said you don't have to continue in this sin, that you don't have to continue in this sin. Imagine that. The heart of like your breakthrough and salvation and like, oh, and then your sanctification too is just believing what Jesus said. And to the degree that your faith is driving your life, the more breakthrough healing and sanctification you're gonna see. And to the degree that sin and lies are driving your life, the more heartache and frustration and bondage that you're going to see. Yeah. So I think that um your spirit, your soul or suke, your mind, and your body are different things. And the Bible will sometimes talk about these things in interchangeable ways. Yeah. Just like the body will sometimes use the word justification in a way where it's what our category would be more like sanctification and sanctification where our category would be more like justification. Yeah. It's it's not trying to give us a perfect system, not all of the um uh writers of the Bible sat down together and agreed upon exactly the language that they wanted to use uh to agree with themselves across the board. They were giving concepts and were to derive from these terms and concepts what it is that they were trying to convey. But I say this to say I think when Christ gives us a new heart, uh a new spirit, and places his spirit inside of us, it is then producing life in our thinking and the way that we process in a way that we didn't have it before. I think before we were separated from God, our spirit was dead and was producing death in the members of our body, and we were unable to even do the right thing even when we wanted to. Um, there may be a I know that's the right thing. I know I want to do that, but I don't desire to do it more than I want to sin. Yeah. Wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of death? A lot like an addict saying, Yes, I would like to have a normal life, but not more than heroin. Yeah. You know, uh, it's it's the reality of the situation. So um some people will make the point that the soul and the spirit are functionally the same thing. And that there's only two parts to you, your body and your soul. And I think that complicates things in a in a way where you're going to then have the spirit of God inside of you living um and connected to in a lot of ways your own sinful, nasty self that apparently also is deeply connected to your physical flesh. Um, and my my connection there is yeah, your neurological pathways, how you think, how you process, what's connected to your personality. A lot of that is interconnected, but it's not the same as your the spirit that God has placed inside of you. Um not to be overly complicated here.
SPEAKER_00What I want to do we did a whole episode on the go back and listen to it if you want to.
SPEAKER_01What I would want to communicate is uh I believe God has given you a new spirit, a new heart, new convictions. Then the the spirit that is inside of you is then um revealing truth to you in all kinds of different ways, and to the degree that you believe what God has said, work gets done, your mind gets changed, which is what repentance means, metanoia, to change your mind. And then you begin to see those things and how you actually live out in your flesh, which is not a bad thing. Um again, sometimes the Bible communicates in your flesh as a way of saying your ungodly appetites in the way that you have lived versus the appetites that God is giving you. Yeah. Um, and we got to discern between those things. But in general, when you read this passage, I think what you should take away from it is uh apart from the Spirit of God doing a work inside of you, you will be a slave to your own depravity and the desires that you have that will always trump your desire for doing the right things, even though you know the right thing is better, you'll choose the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01With the Spirit of God doing a work inside of you, you are dead to the person that you used to be, which is why Galatians 2.20 says, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. Um, and you get to live in the kind of Romans 8 lifestyle that Christ has actually called you to. So if you've been the person who's using Romans 7 as a crutch or an excuse for ongoing sin in your life, saying this
Legalism Defined And Misused
SPEAKER_01is just how things are gonna be, I want to tell you I think you're very, very, very wrong. And a lot of other verses in scripture, like Romans 6 that I just read, uh would would communicate to you that actually that's a that's a pattern of those who don't believe and are in a very scary place that is doesn't look like repentance or Christianity, but looks like uh the antinomian heresy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I kind of want to get your take on this a little bit. I I've got an idea of what you might say. But um I feel like somebody falling for that is is the same kind of person that's saying, you know, well, that's the law, that's the old testament, that's legalism. And calling something legalism when they're being called out for something they shouldn't do. Like hiding behind the the term legalism seems seems to be addressed by what he's saying here.
SPEAKER_01Let me tell you what the the best definition I can give you of legalism legalism is taking what the Bible doesn't explicitly command and making it or elevating it to the level of a command to somebody else. Okay. All right, so the way I'd like to explain this to somebody is if God told you, he laid it on your heart and convicted you that you should not watch TV anymore, would it be a sin for you to not watch TV? No. I would say so.
SPEAKER_00I would say it would be a sin for you to watch TV.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. Okay, did I phrase that wrong? Okay. Yeah, we're sorry, my bad if I said that wrong. No, you're good. If God told you not to watch TV and you watch TV, I think that's a sin. Yeah, agreed. If I then communicate to somebody else it's also a sin for you to watch TV, well, now that's legalism. Now I'm imposing a good idea that I am now declaring to be a standard for everyone else. And I would say that the heart of legalism is taking good ideas and making them commands and then demanding everyone else live by those commands. And oftentimes the ideas, the the good ideas behind legalism are good ideas, just not in every scenario for every person and every circumstance. Um, this is why, like, you know, Baptist churches, it's like if you don't wear a suit when you preach, you're no longer Baptist and may not be saved. You know what I mean? Like it's that kind of mentality. Well, it's like, well, start it out as a I want to bring honor to God, I want to bring my best, I want to bring, you know what I mean, can suddenly become this nowhere in the Bible is it communicating anything like that. And somebody might be like, well, I can think I could get there from the Levitical priesthood. Okay, um, you good luck on that. You know, good like that sounds like it's gonna be more like eisegesis than exegesis to me, but live your dream.
SPEAKER_00But if somebody says, well, God commands us to do this or the law commands us to do this, then it literally does. You can't say, well, that's just legalism because it's not by definition.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean, very much so. If the Bible is saying, don't do this thing or do this thing, and you're doing the opposite. Somebody calling you a legalist is just they're just trying to, you know, deflect. They're they just would like to not be sitting under condemnation. Yeah. And then they'll use the new John 3.16, right? Uh, what is it, Matthew 7.1 or 7.2, something like that. Judge not lest you be judged. What is it, Matthew? Uh uh I know it's Matthew 7. I just don't
Encouragement And Book Teaser
SPEAKER_01know. Yeah. Yeah, Matthew 7.1. Judge not lest you be judged. Um so I love that the very next line is, and when you judge, it's like, well, hold on a minute here. Judge righteously. That's what it's saying. So uh I hope this encourages people. Yeah. Here's what I would say. If you have died with Christ, you've been given a new life. You're supposed to live like you have a new life and not continue to live under the bondage that the enemy will want you to live under. I think there's a ton of people with addictions uh to, you know, sins uh that are really unhealthy. And these are the same people who like to say that Paul's thorn in his flesh was some sin pattern. And we don't have any indication that it's a sin pattern. It's something, it's a messenger from Satan that uh Paul hated and it was a thorn in his side. It doesn't say it was a sin. Everybody who's like, clearly, this is this is talking about the life of a believer also seems to believe that Paul's thorn in his side was like he was a homosexual for sure. That's what it was. I'm like, dude, I please stop. Yeah. And when somebody says that, I'm like, all you're telling me is you got a raging sin issue and you're really trying to find justification for it in the Bible. Stop. S-T-A-H-P. Cut it, cut it out.
SPEAKER_00All right, cut it out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I hope this encourages you guys. Um, definitely encourage you to go back to the book of Romans and let it encourage you, not discourage you. Let it build you up, don't tear you down. It's all about looking past what was and looking forward to what Christ has for you now and in that finding victory. So hopefully.
SPEAKER_00Yes, again, because I would remiss we still have burn. The book is coming. The book is coming.
SPEAKER_01The book is coming. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. I know many of you are like, I don't see it online. It's not there yet. Just wait. It's gonna drop. It's gonna be legendary. It's we're hyping it up. It's coming. It'll be it'll be ready for you to buy for all of your friends. It'll be awesome. Nice. Okay. Thanks, guys. Have a great week.
