The Conflict of Two Natures

Romans 7, probably starting in verse 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? On the contrary, far from it. On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law. For I would not have known about coveting or desiring if the law had not said, thou shalt not desire. But sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting or desiring of every kind. For apart from the law, sin is dead or put out of business.

I was once alive. apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came to life 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, it killed me. So that the law is holy, the commandment is holy, and righteous and good. Therefore, did that which is good become a cause of death to me?

Far from it. Rather, it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin, by bringing about my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. And the verses for today, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I'm fleshly sold into bondage to sin, for I do not understand what I'm doing, for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. However, if I do the very thing that I don't want to do, I agree that the law, that the law is good. But now, no longer am I the one doing it but sin, which dwells in me.

We've been working our way through Romans 7. You know, I've had a lot of thoughts about Romans 7 because there's so much practical information. Maybe I should say it this way. Up until the time that we arrived at Romans 7.4, we were pretty much talking about positional truth. And positional truth is statements about what God has done, not only for us, but to us. And it explains to us that we have a position in the Lord Jesus which results in all kinds of wonderful things, and it makes it difficult because it's so radical, really, that I died with Christ? Did that really happen?

Well, it says so. Well, if I look in the mirror, I don't look so dead. If I look at these verses, they make a lot of sense to me because I would really want to do good, but gee, you know, sometimes I just don't live, a lot of times I don't live up to what the Word says my position ought to be.

So if we look at the first six verses of chapter seven, what we find is that there's a release from the legal principle illustrated by the example of the husband and wife who have a legal marriage contract. Jewish believers to whom the law of Moses was given, that's the only way they could get free from that law was to die. Believers are dead to the law by identification and death with Christ made sin. now joined to a risen Christ, thus bearing fruit to God and rendering glad service. That's what we found in the first six verses. But now from seven all the way to 24, we get to see a conditional working out of Paul's unsuccessful struggle to be holy by the law. before he knew the indwelling sin nature and his helplessness against it, he didn't know, that he had died with Christ to sin and the law, which gave the sin nature its power to perform.

So verse 12 says, so then the law is holy, the commandment is holy and righteous and good. So Paul was describing a struggle under law was as a converted Israelite Jew before he knew that in Christ he was dead to the law, because he can say, I was alive apart from the law once. He's cruising along, everything's fine. I'm a Pharisee, I'm really doing well.

It's the struggle of one who's born again. and the delights in the law of God seeking to force the flesh to obey God's rules and laws. The end, of course, is to cry in utter despair, as we'll see when we get to 723, because the law is really a ministration of death, not life. And a new view of Christ is the one through whom he has found deliverance from sin's power and from the law that gave it its power.

So verse 13 says, so therefore did that which is good, the law, the rules, become a cause of death for me? And he says, no, never, can't be, never be. Rather it was sin, not the law, in order that it might be shown to be sin by affecting my death Through that which is good, the law was good, sin nature isn't. So that through the commandment, sin would become exceedingly or utterly sinful. So we have to ask ourselves, what is the divine intention of working death for a man through that which is good? Why would God use this principle? It was not the good law but sin which has become death to Paul. Death meaning separation. The divine intention is that sin might appear sin, might come out in its true colors. By working death for man through that which is good, sin turns God's intended blessing into a curse. Now, I must admit that as a young believer, you wanna know what to do. You wanna know how to live. And of course, there are plenty of people around that say, well, here's the list. You do these 4,000 things and you'll be cool.

But what the law really is designed to do is to define and bring out the sin nature. So then did that which is good bring death to Paul or me? Answer is, he says never. The law was not designed to do that, but that's what it does. It was the indwelling sin nature that produced the death. The law forced it to come forward. It was asleep until the law showed up. using this which is good through the commandment before sin was shown to be sin.

So, Robertson says that the excess of sin reveal its real nature. Only then do some people get their eyes open. If you really wanna try really hard to be good, at some point, you're gonna get your eyes open and say, You know, I have to get honest with myself. It's worse than it was before I found out the rules. So sin's hideous features seen in full, it made sin become exceedingly sinful.

That's what Roger was talking about when the law said you can't covet, which just means desire. You can't do that. Well, you begin to find out that that's all the sin nature ever does, it desires. It wants this, it wants that, it wants this, it wants that. And as soon as the law says don't do it, guess what? It's like trying to put a campfire out with a can of gasoline. Boom.

And we don't get that principle unless I think we're taught that principle through God's word, because we live in a law-based system in the world. And we think that if I can just obey the law, or, gee, I've been born again, I'm indulged by the Holy Spirit, and it's up to him to allow me to keep the law. No, that isn't what these verses are saying. So, for we know that the law is spiritual, okay, but I'm a flesh sold under the bondage of sin.

For what I'm doing, I don't understand. For what I'm not practicing, not 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 that the law with the law, confessing that the law is good. Now let's try to unwrap that, because it's kind of doublespeak when you first look at it. First of all, I want you to notice the I's.

I, I, I. Romans chapter six. I, me, me, myself is used 47 times. 47 times. And 19 times in chapter seven, and the capital I, 28 times. So if you're like me, you get into a conversation with somebody and you're walking away and you say, well, that person never talks about us themselves. What do you think Paul's doing? He's talking about himself. He's talking about a situation where he, I, I can't do it. I wanna do it, but I can't do it. So when we eventually get to chapter eight, we'll see that I, me, occurs one time. I, twice.

In chapter eight, we, us, are, and like words occur 41 times, so now it's just not I. In chapter eight, we're conscious at last of the blessed indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that of all the saints, while the legal struggle is carried on in terrible loneliness. What Newell meant by that is the I-I-I isolates you and you're terribly alone in that battle. when you don't have the Holy Spirit involved with what you're doing. So we discover, or Paul discovers, that the law is a spiritual thing. And what does it mean that the law is spiritual?

Well, a couple of things. One, it addresses to man by God, and God is a spirit, right? God is a spirit. And he put a spirit in the man, 1 Corinthians 2.11, so that he could communicate with God.

Consisting of communications adapted to and only understandable by being of a spiritual realm or sphere. In other words, spiritual people understand spiritual things. Non-spiritual people, the lost, don't. They don't have the capacity. spiritual also in a moral sense, holy, because it's communicated by the Holy Spirit.

Hal Malloy wrote it this way, he said, the law is spiritual because it's from God, its content is spiritual, its precepts are spiritual, its rewards are spiritual, its origin with God, and thus it is in harmony with his essential essence, which is spiritual. It is addressed to man by God who is a spirit. It's fulfilled in the believer who walks in the spirit. Kind of interesting because that's the only way it's fulfilled. When we look at this verse that says, we know the law is spiritual, and we just said why, but he said, but I'm of the flesh, I'm carnal, sold into the bondage of sin.

Oh, well, it's interesting that he didn't say, I'm bodily, I'm fleshly. You understand the difference? He didn't say, he doesn't speak of his self, that that's what he is by nature, by body, which would be the word sema, but he's saying, look, I'm a carnal. So let's get into that. If Paul had been speaking of himself before being born again, he would have used the word, I'm natural, I'm a natural man. The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, So he uses the word carnal. It's not used to describe an unregenerated person, but it's used of a Christian not delivered from the power of the flesh. I think that covers most of us. I know it covers me.

So in 1 Corinthians 3.1 says, I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, unto babes in Christ. So, In this connection, I want you to note that Paul's condition at the time of the struggle was not that of being carnal. There was those that were spiritual. All believers weren't carnal. He that is spiritual judges all things, from 1 Corinthians 2. He who is spiritual restores such a one, when we studied Galatians.

Now, it's interesting that Paul uses three words in his writings to describe men. He calls them either a natural man, a carnal man, or a spiritual man. The natural man is an unsaved man whose highest form of life is determined by his own reason, his own mind, his own emotion, and his own nature. and you could say he's totally dominated by his soul, which is infected with a sin nature. That's the natural man. Carnal man, the other term that Paul uses, is a saved man who has not found deliverance from the power of sin yet, in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, but is more or less still under the control of the evil nature. Spiritual man. That's a man, the believer, who's living his life in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. We all want to do that. We have to learn. But we've got to go through the carnal stage. I don't know anybody that jumps from Romans 3 to Romans 8 just because they heard it.

Carnal is not used to describe an unbeliever, as I said. It's used to describe a believer. So it should help us not to get too nervous if we're not super spiritual right away. But he says, for we know that the law is spirit, but sold unto bondage. The word, here Paul describes himself as carnal, as a Christian living, however unwillingly, more or less under the control of an evil sin nature. by the way, that I shouldn't refer to it as evil sin nature, because there's a lot that we consider in that sin nature that's good. Notice that the tree that Eve ate from was the tree of the knowledge of both good and evil. But it wasn't spiritual. It wasn't godly, and it wasn't holy. So goodness is not the criteria that we live by.

But I'm still controlled by that nature. And even though I have been positionally liberated from it, and I'm out from under its control, but it does control me because I'm living under a lost system. He's sold as a slave under sin. Now sold means it's in the perfect passive tense, which means someone or something thus becoming a slave.

It's a completed action done in the past. It isn't something that, oh, every Thursday or Friday it happens. No, it's going on now. And it has abiding results all the time. I love what Robertson said, he said, sin has foreclosed the mortgage and owns the slave. But we have this position. We have already been set completely free from the bondage of sin nature.

But conditionally, let's take a look and see how it works. I think the first thing is we learn that are having died in Christ on the cross gives us a ground of freedom from the power of sin. You know, we're cruising along in God's word and somebody introduces us to Romans 6. I remember when I got introduced to it, the way the guy did it was he sat down, I was having lunch with him, he says, I want you to read the first verse. three or four or five, six verses of Romans 6, see what it says.

So I read it. I didn't know, I was a brand new Christian. He said, what does it say? I said, sounds like I died. He said, yeah, that's what it says. You think I couldn't eat my dessert after that? I died, what are you talking about? I'm sitting here, I'm probably gonna have to pay the bill. I died, you know?

But I learned that, you learn it. Most believers don't because they're not taught it. They are not taught that they died in Christ. We call it the identification truths. When Christ died, we died. When he was buried, so were we. When he was resurrected, so were we. But Miles Stanford says, but unless we learn the answer to the bondage of the principle of law, we will be right back in the defeat of Romans 7 no matter how hard we reckon. The law reveals sin and produces us, produces this bondage. The answer to the principle of sin prepares us for the answer to the principle of law. What's the answer to the principle of sin? What's the answer to the principle of law? Reckoning is a key to both.

And then both have to do with the death of the cross and our life in Christ. Romans 7 says, but now we have been released from the law. How? Having died to that which we were bound. So that we serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. How did I get free from the law? I died to it in Christ. As Paul tells us in verse one, as long as we lived and walked in the self life, we were under the principle and domain of the law, thus the sin nature controls everything.

We're back to talking about position. Positioning in Christ, no believer is under the law. Not a single one. Positionally. Do I need to explain position and condition? Most of you have heard it so many times. The law was given to Moses, but grace and truth came from Jesus Christ, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to anyone that believes. Conditionally, though, which is where we all live, almost all believers are to some extent under the principle of law as their rule of life. Their all too general attitude is Now check this off if this is how you think.

I must love the Lord. I must love others. I must maintain my testimony. I must witness and work for him. I must resist self. I must stop sinning. Good luck with that. The feeling of constraint expressed in this phrase, I must, makes for the Roman seven defeat. That's legalism. I must. So we find out, how did Paul get into this state of carnality?

If you read Romans 7 and 8, what shall we say? Then is law sin, may it never be. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except the law said, for I would have not known about coveting. I wouldn't have known about that. Desiring. I mean, it's one thing to sin, it's another thing to want to. I would not have known about it and said, you shall not desire.

You know, we have a tendency to, Attach the word covenant to sexual desires, just everything. If I go out in the parking lot and see you got a really cool truck, I'm desiring. If I visit your house and you got something really cool in there, Courtney came into my house last week. We have a new TV. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

But sin taking the opportunity through the commandment, producing me desiring of every kind, apart from the law, the law that said don't desire, sin is dead. So but sin, the sin nature, it uses God's commandment for its base of operation to attack your soul. How Molloy said that, I like that phrase. If you look at Genesis 3-1, when Satan was tempting Eve, now the serpent was more crafty than the beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, now watch this, this is very subtle.

Indeed, has God said, you shall not eat from any of the tree of the garden? What is he doing? Notice the tree, you can't eat of any of them? She said, no, we can eat any tree we want, we just can't eat of this one tree. He said, God's holding something back.

And she started to desire. And she didn't even have a sin nature. She started to desire. So, to fully reveal the true nature of the sin nature, it takes the God's commands and desires to make sin known. You ever think about that? If God didn't have his law, the commandments, you wouldn't know as much about your sinfulness as you do. We can thank him for that. When God's commandments or desires are made known, then the sin nature springs into action. you know, for the thousandth time.

You took a two-year-old in your living room, put a glass of water on the table, and say, don't touch it. What's he gonna do? He's gonna be looking at it, and pretty soon, he's gonna go touch it. Why? Just because you said don't. So the sin nature is revealed because his desires are dramatically, diametrically opposed to the Spirit's desires.

Therefore, the sin nature stands in opposition to the Spirit of God, Galatians 5.17.

It's clear that Paul is recounting his experience, the experience of a saved man. He desires to do what's good, and he hates sin. No unsaved man does that. No unsaved man hates sin. Now he may have done something that he regrets, but he doesn't hate sin. The failure to achieve his purpose is found in the fact that he's attempting in his own strength that which can only be accomplished in the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. We said it really well right there.

So, Paul says, for what I'm doing, I don't understand. For what I'm practicing, for I am not practicing what I would like to do, I'm doing the very thing I hate. You can say, can a believer knowingly practice what he hates? Paul says that's exactly what he's doing. Have you ever done that?

And said, oh, I wish I could stop. Paul says, for that which I do, I don't understand. He doesn't understand his experience as a Christian. He always and we always think, oh, it ought to be better than this. He says, for that which I desire, this I do not practice, but that which I hate, that's what I'm doing. And have you ever felt like that or thought like that? I know I have. It's the very thing he desires to do, namely good, this he does not do, and that what he does he hates.

Now, let's get into it a little bit. Every time this word doing is used in this verse, it's a different Greek word. Three words. The first one, what I'm doing, is the word which means to labor or perform, to put into effect. I'm always producing what I don't understand. Paul's saying, I'm confused. I don't understand what's going on. What am I doing?

And then the next one, practicing. Execute, accomplish, habitually practicing. I'm not practicing that. And the third one, to produce something tangible or something obvious to the senses. To make or create, to manufacture or to perform. So to paraphrase, McCauley says, I don't understand my production. I don't understand my practice, and I don't understand my performance. Oh, well, this practice is pervasive in every man, every Christian man. God has given each one of us immaterial abilities.

We can think, we can choose, and we can feel. So I look at this and I think, well, I have the ability to think, I've got an intellect, But I don't understand what's going on here. I have the ability to choose. I've got will. I can choose. I'm not practicing what I'd like to do. I'm choosing to do something different than what I'm doing.

And of course, I can feel. And that's where everybody, in this society, everybody's about feeling. I'm doing the very thing that I hate. So if you put it this way, what I think in my mind is not what I do. What I choose to do is not what I do. And what I hate, that's exactly what I'm doing. Now, when I was putting this together, I was thinking to myself, Do I really think that way?

Yeah, I know what this experience is like, and I think any believer who's trying to walk in the Spirit knows exactly what Paul's talking about. I can't live up to the life that's been given me. I can't do it. I wanna do it. I know what it is. I'm choosing to do it, but you know what? I hate the way I live. So.

And he says, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, what is the conclusion? I agree with the law, confessing that the law is good. What I want to do is good. The natural sinful man does what he wants to do, and he's willing to condemn God's law if it interferes with him. Yep. But Paul cries in this struggle, I have just discovered that I am not at all in my heart opposing the law, but I am in my heart of hearts consenting that it's good. Newell says this is a really big step in a Christian's life.

The natural man loves darkness rather than light. He does exactly what he wants to do. hates the law because it is God's will and not his. The carnal man, on the other hand, in his heart, he does not oppose the law. But in his heart, he is agreeing that it is right. The law is right.

I can remember as a kid going to Catholic schools, looking at all the little things that we were supposed to do, and I didn't agree with any of them. You know, sometimes I was forced to comply, but I wasn't happy about it. So, in the matter of forgiveness, let's just use that as an example. The thief on the cross took that step when he looked at his fellow thief and said, we receive the due rewards for our deeds.

What did he confess at that point? We deserve it. The other guy didn't think that. He's cursing. He saw that he deserved the deed. And Paul, forgiven but understand, he cries, the law's right. My heart consents to God's word and God's way. However, I am far from following it. And now he pursues his advantage. If a believer knew More fully, the deliverance of the first part of Romans 7, I died to the law, I died to sin. They would experience less of the defeat of the latter part, which is verse 7 through 24.

Anything we seek to do or keep from doing in our own strength brings us under a legal bondage. any promise or vow we make to the Lord. Once we started studying grace around here, and I started to perform a marriage or two, I used to think we probably wouldn't have them making vows, because they're going to live under grace if it's going to work. And they vow to each other, what happens?

They go right under the law principle again, which produces sin. Any code of ethics or rules of conduct that set up for ourselves or have placed upon us are on the basis of law, and therefore result in failure and ever-deepening enslavement. The principle of law applies to the self-life. and can produce nothing but self-righteousness. Thus, the law convicts of our need of the life of Christ. So what's the key to understanding all of Romans 7? There's one key. The key to the problem of law is the very door of Romans 7, the very first chapter, the very first verse.

Know ye not, brethren, that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he lives? Every one of you died in Christ the day you were saved. You died. You died to the world. You died to that old man. You died to everything that isn't of Christ. Everything. Exactly. Although, this is from Miles. Miles probably understands this struggle better than anybody I've ever read.

All through the years of defeat, we have been slowly learning that the harder we tried to live the Christian life, the deeper we came under the dominion of law of sin. We tried to be, we tried to do, and there was nothing but failure year in and year out. As long as we depended on our own resources, all we produced was sin. We hungered for life and we brought forth death. but in the midst of our miserable attempts to deliver ourselves from the tyranny of sin, our faithful Father was teaching us what we had to know for our freedom in Christ. Self is our greatest enemy, and Christ is our only hope. For me to live is Christ.

So this is one of the problems, Miles Stanford says, this comes from The Hungry Heart from a few days ago. This is one of the problems of teaching the identification truths without the consequent conformity to death which brings forth life. Here's what he means. We may rely upon the fact that we died with the Lord Jesus. and assume that is entirely operating in us right when we believed it.

Not realizing that the fellowship of his sufferings follows the apprehension of identification. The delivery unto death must become deeper and deeper until the conformity to his death in the path of the cross becomes a real characteristic of your life and my life. We're not to think that our exalted position in the Lord Jesus, seated with him in the heavenly places, frees us from the need of further application of the cross. We never reach the point where we can leave the cross. Never. Which is really cool. So, but thanks be to God.

We not only died to the principle of sin in Christ on the cross, but we were also dead to and out from the dominion of the whole principle of law. Further, we're not only thereby freed from the oldness of the letter, but we're joined to him who is the newness of the spirit. Christ is the power of God, he is. We must be reminded that the power for deliverance from the law does not reside in the fact that we have died unto it, but the power for it is in our relationship to the resurrected Christ. He's the liberator. We sometimes think that liberation is just a concept that once we get it, we're gonna be liberated. No, we are liberated by a person, the resurrected Christ.

Unless we clearly reckon upon having died to the principle of law, we are constantly under the gloom of failing to meet our spiritual obligations. So, in closing, when we rest in the risen Lord Jesus, we're more aware of His sufficiency than we are of the claims of law upon us. and we are able to walk in the liberty where was Christ has made us free. The Lord Jesus said, come to me, all ye that are heavy laden, that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest is in a person.

Now I think we're able to understand that I through the law died to the law, that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ and is no longer I who live self. But Christ, my new life, lives in me, new creation. And that life which I now live in the flesh, in this body, I live by how? By faith, the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. That's close.

Father, how thankful we are you have left no stone unturned, no situation to keep us from you. We recognize that the law was designed to make sins exceedingly sinful. We also recognize and rest in the fact that we were crucified with your son, dead, buried, and resurrected, and we now live and function in newness of life, which is in your dear son, the Lord Jesus, and we pray in his name, amen.