The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee
Freedom from Sin's Grasp - 4
Note: See the Answer Key at the bottom of this page to fill in the blanks.
This portion of Paul’s letter deals with the ____________ _______________ ___________ of the Gospel: Because of what Jesus has done in shedding His Blood to ______________ our sins and dying on the Cross that we may be ________________ in our old, sinful nature, we have the opportunity to live in freedom from sin’s grasp!
Overview:
| Romans 6:1-14 | Sin's Power is Broken | Paul tells us that since we have “died” with Christ, been and crucified with Him, sin no longer has any power over us. |
| Romans 6:15-23 | Freedom to Obey God | Paul uses the illustration of slaves and masters to show that sin is no longer our “master” since we have “died” as “slaves” to sin. |
| Romans 7:1-6 | No Longer Bound to the Law | Paul uses the illustration of a woman married to an unwanted “husband” (the Law of Moses), who “dies” through receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior and thus is able to “marry” a “new Husband,” (Jesus). |
| Romans 7:7-13 | God’s Law Reveals Our Sin | Paul points out that it is the Law (of Moses), which demonstrates that we are sinners. If not for the Law telling us what we have to do, we would be unaware of our sin. |
| Romans 7:14-25 | Struggling with Sin | Here Paul points out that even though we have “died” to sin the sinful nature can still come to the forefront. The resulting struggle means that we find ourselves doing the things we don’t want to do, and not do the things we know we should! |
| Romans 8:1-17 | Life in the Spirit | Paul introduces the life in the Spirit and points out our ultimate victory and freedom from condemnation. |
| Romans 8:18-30 | The Future Glory | Here Paul points out that not only we, but all of creation look forward to an eternal, glorious future. |
| Romans 8:31-39 | Nothing Can Separate Us From God’s Love | In this closing section, Paul reminds us that no one or no thing can ever separate us from God’s love through Christ Jesus! |
Romans 7:14-25 Struggling with Sin
Here Paul moves to what is an all too real representation of what happens in our lives even after we have received the forgiveness of Jesus through the shedding of His blood on the cross, and our _____________ with Him on the cross: we continue to struggle with doing what is right, and not doing what is wrong. Watchman Nee points out that the struggle here is caused because we must not only be delivered from the “body of sin.” We must also be delivered from the “body of ____________.” This body of death means that even though we want to do God’s will, our “body” is _________________ with regard to doing it. Until we discover this reality in practical terms, we never give up, and call on Jesus to _____________ us by coming and living in our hearts and lives. Let’s turn now to the text
14The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. 15
Even though Paul has told us in Romans 6 that we “died” to our slavery to sin, and have received a new master—Jesus Christ, here Paul concludes that the law shows us that we are still living as slaves to our old master, sin, in practical terms. The law is not the problem—we are! The law is good, because it shows us what is right and wrong, and points out our sin, so that we may repent and be restored by the blood of Jesus. The continuing challenge is that we continue to make our own efforts to be good rather than to rely fully and completely on the presence of Jesus in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
APPLICATION POINT: If we are ever going to move forward in the process of sanctification—becoming holy, becoming like Jesus—then we must first acknowledge that we CANNOT do it ourselves. We must “die” another death—a death to ____________ (and even training) to fulfill the law through our own efforts.
I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. 16I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. 17But I can’t help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.
Did you notice how many times Paul uses the pronoun “I” in these three verses? He uses “I” nine times and “me/my” three times. Paul is pointing us to the source of all our problems. As the old Pogo cartoon put it, “We have met the enemy and it is us!” When “I” am in charge of my life, there is a guarantee of failure, a guarantee that “I” won’t do what’s right, even though I really want to do so. In fact, “I” will do the very things that I hate to do. When “I” finish doing it “I” will even hate myself for it. Paul tells us that our bad consciences are a recognition that the law is good. Paul points out that it is the sin “inside me” that makes me do these evil things.
APPLICATION POINT: So which is it? Are we freed from sin and death, and crucified with Jesus so that we no longer need to sin OR is it that there is a constant battle within myself that sin is bound to win? YES! Romans 6 is true AND Romans 7 is true. The difference between “dying to sin” and physically dying is that once we physically die we cannot do anything, while when we die to sin there is still the _____________ that “I” will assert myself and take away the righteousness that Jesus offers to me. We must come to a point of complete and absolute cessation of our human effort, in order for sanctification to become a reality in our lives. This is counterintuitive. We think that if we are to become like Jesus, we must make great efforts to overcome our sinful nature, and to live out the disciplines of a growing disciple. The reality is we must give up. We must quit. We must admit that only by the grace of Jesus in us, will we ever become holy and perfect as the Lord, our God is holy and perfect.
18I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t. 19When I want to do good, I don’t. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. 20But if I am doing what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it.
Paul seems to come perilously close to the heresy of “gnosticism” here. The Gnostics believed that the body and spirit were separate and distinct and that the spirit was good, while the body was evil. Thus, sin wasn’t a great problem for Gnostics, because they saw it as merely an act of the flesh, which didn’t affect the spirit, which always remained pure. This is NOT Paul was saying. Paul understood that the body and the spirit are part of the one individual. He was pointing out, though, that there is a definite distinction between the “old person” and the “new one.” The old person will ALWAYS succumb to sin in the end. The new person will not. It comes back to the reality that even though we ___________ to sin, when we receive the blood and cross of Jesus Christ, the old person can still influence us, when we fail to let the Holy Spirit control our spirit.
APPLICATION POINT: While for the sake of argument Paul has separated the discussion of our dying to sin, our struggling with sin and the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome sin into three distinct sections, which those who divided the Bible into chapters labeled as Romans 6-7-8, there is never such a separation in the actual living of the Christian life. As Paul points out in Galatians 5:16-18,
“16So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. 18But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law. (Emphasis added)
EVERY choice we will ever make involves this struggle of whether to let our “sinful nature” or our “Holy Spirit nature” rule in our lives. Notice that in Galatians 5:18 Paul concludes that when we are directed (or controlled) by the Holy Spirit, we are NO LONGER SUBJECT TO THE LAW. This is the vital reality and distinction that Paul makes in Romans and Galatians---We will _____________ fail in our old, sinful nature, but by the Holy Spirit present in us (which we get to in chapter 8) we may be “more than conquerors.”
21It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
Paul sums up in a brief sentence the experience of all of us, when it comes to living the Christian life in our own power—we fail, inevitably we fail, just as day inevitably follows night. It is that certain.
22I love God’s law with all my heart.
Paul points out an important reality here. He LOVES God’s law. Paul was a former Pharisee. He knew the law backwards and forwards and upside down. He had devoted his life to learning it, to living it, and it was precious to him. Paul was not a “low-life.” He wasn’t a murderer. He wanted to do God’s will, and thought he was when he started off for Damascus to arrest Christians. But the problem is, even when we “love” God’s law, we cannot live it. The power of sin in our lives is that great, and we must not deceive ourselves about that.
23But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.
Here Paul admits that in the battle for his mind, heart and life, the sin that is still within him, even after he has accepted Jesus and been filled with the Holy Spirit still wins.
APPLICATION POINT: Paul notes that the war’s main “battlefield” is our minds. We are intellectual beings. We draw information from the environment and use it to survive, then to thrive. The spiritual struggles of our lives are also fought in our minds. We weigh evidence. We study. We document. We investigate. In the end the process can be a stumbling block to faith in Jesus, and to living the victorious life in the Spirit. That’s because we can end up making “education” the focus of our lives. We think that we simply need to learn a new prayer technique, or another discipline and we will overcome sin once and for all. The reality is no matter how smart we are, the devil will outsmart us. Add to this that most Christians in America are educated beyond the level of our faith and obedience, and there is a formula for on-going ____________ and _______________.
24Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? (This body of death)
This is the KEY question that unlocks the ultimate answer to the devastation and dominance of sin in our lives. Paul is not longer debating about the law or sin or about any other THING or any other INTELLECTUAL ARGUMENT. HE asks, “WHO will free me from this body of death (this life dominated by sin?” Paul recognizes that deliverance from sin and death comes from a PERSON—from the one person who is both person and God as we shall see in verse twenty-five. But before we move to the answer, let’s look at this image of a “body of death.” Paul’s image here is taken from Roman criminal law. At the time when a murderer was convicted, the body of his victim was tied to him-- hand to hand, foot to foot, face to face. The murderer had to carry the weight of this dead body, and the decay, and the—you get the picture—wherever he went. This is the pervasiveness of sin in our life. It is literally a dead weight that pulls us down and WILL ultimately destroy us if not for SOMEONE delivering us. We cannot do it on our own.
25Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
The only solution to our predicament is JESUS CHRIST. As Paul has made clear throughout the book of Romans, we are all sinners and the only solution to sin and death is JESUS. He sums up this whole section by restating the obvious: In my ____________ I want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. In the end we must come to the place of utter desperation, utter despair of our own goodness, otherwise our “success” will undo us. Every time we “succeed” in being “good” in our own power and effort, we move farther away from the truth that our victory is in Christ Jesus our Lord and Him alone. His victory is _________ victory. We must ever settle for a __________________ victory as followers of Jesus, because we cannot defeat sin and death. We can only accept it’s defeat on our behalf through the completed work of Jesus on the cross, in the shedding of His blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and our being crucified with Him. We end where we started: with Jesus providing the solution to sin and death—and Jesus alone.
APPLICATION POINT: As Paul completes his “argument” for the absolute necessity of Jesus living in us, for us to overcome sin and death, and we prepare to move to Romans 8 and his discussion of the Holy Spirit’s overcoming presence and power in our lives, we are left again with a major decision: Will this be an intellectual exercise or a transformation point in our lives. Will we nod our heads in agreement about what sinners we are, and how we can’t do what we want to do for God, and then keep “beating our heads against the wall” trying to be good, or will we give it up? The answer to that question determines a great deal about what kind of life, attitude, and influence we will live and exert in our daily lives. Paul’s influence on others was NOT his great understanding of the Jewish law, or his great speaking or writing ability. It came from His absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide his life. Paul tells us that he was the “chief” of sinners, but God through Jesus Christ showed mercy on him. In the same way, when we recognize honestly who we are when “no one is looking,” and hand all that over to God, letting Jesus nail it to the cross and deliver us from the “body of death,” then and only then will we become the more than conquerors that Paul tells us we are through Christ Jesus, our Lord!
ANSWER KEY: really fantastic news, forgive, crucified, crucifixion, death, lifeless, deliver, trying, potential, die, always, failure, frustration, mind, our, vicarious.
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